


Let Me In

by Ledaeus



Series: Greater Virtues of Criminality [1]
Category: Dishonored (Video Games), Thief (Video Game 2014), Thief (Video Games)
Genre: AU where Daud was murdered by Corvo, Action/Adventure, After Dishonored 1, Angst, Before Thi4f, Crossover, Death Threats, Drugs, Eventual Smut, Fluff, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Infection, Injury, M/M, Medium Chaos (Dishonored), Mind Games, Original Character(s), Painkillers, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Torture, Whump, bad language, smut starts at the end of chapter 21 if you're interested, the slowest burn ever
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-22
Updated: 2019-01-10
Packaged: 2019-07-01 03:09:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 23
Words: 129,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15765369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ledaeus/pseuds/Ledaeus
Summary: Garrett encounters a lot of risk in his life. But when a stranger appears at his clocktower one night, Garrett has to make a choice: whether to let him in, help him, and risk being betrayed, or leave him outside and risk him attracting the attention of guards. Most crucially, he has to let his guard down and learn how to trust others.





	1. Prologue - Failed Contract

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first fanfiction I've written since 2011! It feels really great getting back into the fandom scene and I hope you guys enjoy this fic. It's a simpler one but I decided to start small and see where things go. Hoping that I'll be able to change the tags as the story goes along because I might need to do that. Please let me know what you think!

He had really done it now.

Garrett crashed into the window of the clock tower and cursed as his thigh stung and his ears rang. He had known that it was a risky job, that maybe it wasn’t necessary to push and push and push to find that book, but it was a special job and the client had promised a payout that would guarantee he would never have had to work again, if he wanted to.

Which he didn’t.

Thieving was Garrett’s thing, and without it, he wasn’t sure what he would do every day. Basso spent most of his days drinking at the Siren’s Rest in the Southern District, but that sort of existence would drive him crazy. He needed to be out and about, breaking into stately homes, doing jobs for people who needed jobs doing, maintaining his reputation. There were treasures innumerable in this city and people even more innumerable wanting their cut, however illegally gained.

And here he was, on the floor of his clocktower home, fighting to regain his breath, bleeding profusely from his right thigh having snagged it on something upon his frantic escape from the… he wasn’t sure what is was, actually. A chapel? Monastery? Cult gathering? He didn’t think too intently on where he was stealing from, only collecting the information necessary to guarantee a successful heist. He got back to his feet after some time, and on shaking legs, retrieved a bandage from under his makeshift bed and got to work on cleaning the wound. It wasn’t too deep but was bad enough to hurt quite a lot, and even now it still oozed blood, caking quickly on his leather trousers, leaving a mess for him to wash up later.

Now bandaged up, he went to get himself some water and sat down, sipping quietly from the less-than-clean vessel, trying to ignore his stinging leg. The heist should have been a simple one, he had spent several days before scoping out the building, watching cloaked men enter and then, several hours later, leave with the same air of mystery; tried entering the top floor and took notes here and there of rooms, corridors, and likely trap positions; asked Basso what to expect. Basso had been just as clueless as Garrett, only taking the time to remind him to be careful and no riches were worth his life. Basso would say that.

It had gone wrong just at the last second, when that damn book was just about within his grasp and a great big… thing… had lumbered out of the darkness, having evaded earlier detection, taking a swipe at him leaving him reeling and several guards had poured into the room giving him only seconds to escape out of a window and into a small vent where he had slipped and a stray nail had pierced a gash in his leg. He must be getting old to make a mistake like that. Although he had managed to snag some good loot along the way including a very nice golden decorative dagger set with crimson gems and a rare book on alchemy, he had not actually managed to complete the job, and it would be several days at the very least before he would be able to return, both due to his injury and a no-doubt increased presence of guards, especially once all of the ones he had knocked out, tied up and left in a nearby cupboard, in a cellar, behind a flight of stairs, were found.

But that was all done now and he would have to focus on trying to get the book soon, without having to make a run for it next time. He laid back on his bed, untying his boots, musing. The sun was rising and the world was waking up, pale dawn blues and pinks were illuminating the room, the earliest merchants beginning to set up their market stalls. Time for him to sleep. Garrett watched rays of morning light creep tentatively up the walls and along the ceiling before descending into a fitful sleep.

Bang.  
Bang.  
_Bangbangbangbang._  
Shit.

He woke with a start, freezing in his bed, remaining silent. The light outside was fading, and beyond the frantic banging sound on the window, what remained of the hustle and bustle of the day could be heard retreating from the square. It must be getting late. He waited.

The banging continued sporadically, but weakened. Garrett cursed himself. He must have been spotted last night or the night before, or some other time, but either way this wasn’t good news. He remained still and deathly silent, hoping that whoever was outside his window wasn’t able to see any of the dimming candles lit throughout his dishevelled home. After some time, Garrett wasn’t sure if it was minutes or hours, the banging died down, and he felt empowered to finally move from his bed, and sticking to the shadows, he methodically snuck around his own home, licking his fingers and putting out the remaining lights as he went. Following this, satisfied that he had removed any downstairs source of light, he crept up the wooden steps to see if whoever - or whatever - had been there still was.

Crunch.  
Garrett jumped, taking a quick step backwards and nearly falling down the steps in the process. He flattened himself further into the wall and stayed stock-still. What he could see, from his very limited vantage point, was that a very large hand had managed to put a large crack in the window, and was now bleeding profusely. It twitched occasionally but apart from that it was completely still. At this point, Garrett decided that whoever it was probably wasn’t as much of a threat to him (especially armed with his blackjack) or his possessions as he had previously thought. He regained his balance and crept up the stairs until he was looking down at the hand that was already making a bloody mess of the balcony.

The man that the hand was attached to was huge. Easily over 6 feet tall and at least 220 lb. Cloaked in a huge blue trench coat with fancy golden piping that Garrett had never seen before, let alone believed to be local to the area. He had mostly stopped moving, but occasionally gurgling noises escaped his lips, along with sharp shuddering breaths. He had dark bruises along at least one of his cheeks and long, dirty hair matted with blood on the back. Whoever this guy was, Garrett mused, he had taken one hell of a beating.  
He tentatively opened the glass, clambering around to the other side, removed the strange man’s hand from the crack in the window while trying not to get too much blood on himself, and slowly worked at dragging him through and into the safety of his clocktower. All the while he kept a good grip on his blackjack in case this situation was less than innocent. He was less than pleased about the situation but between letting the man die on the balcony and subsequently having a body to dispose of (not to mention the horrible ethics of the situation), and letting him stay but kicking him out when he was well enough to be on his way with a threat or two to keep him in line, there was little question between the two. The stranger might even be useful in some way.

Deciding against stripping this considerably larger and stronger man of his valuables, he pulled him slowly, feet first into the centre of the top floor before returning to close the window. Garrett was not a tall or heavy man but he just about managed to carry the other’s body weight. The stranger appeared to be breathing fine, pulse normal, but very much unconscious. There was no way Garrett was going to be able to get him downstairs without significant risk to himself, so he decided on bringing a pillow upstairs. He made his way down to retrieve it with some difficulty owing to the still-raw injury from the previous night, and grabbed a couple of bandages from underneath the bed and twine from a nearby table while he was at it. Returning to the mystery man, he studied his head, searching for the source of the bleeding from the wound he had endured. Luckily it appeared to be coming from the back, meaning that severe injury was unlikely, and he was passed out because of exhaustion rather than trauma.

Garrett bandaged the wound, not caring to clean it and then wedging a pillow underneath his neck, ensuring the head was supported. Then he removed the large coat which was surprisingly heavy, and lugged it across the balustrade, leaving it swinging, returning to the strange man to check for other injuries. All others appeared to be superficial or simply bruises (and there were an awful lot of bruises) so there wasn’t much more he could do to help, aside from watching and ensuring he didn’t get any worse. Finally, before finishing up, he took the twine and tied the man’s hands together above his head, as well as binding his feet so that he couldn’t get up and steal his shit, or even worse hurting Garrett, before leaving. Garrett didn’t take chance like that. While binding his hands, Garrett noticed something he hadn’t noticed before: a black mark covering the back of his left hand, looking like he had been branded with some strange seal or symbol. He had never seen this mark before. Was it a foreign thieving mark? Some other cult’s brand? Had it been punishment for some crime? Maybe even a drunken prank gone wrong? He studied it for a solid minute, turning the other’s hand over within his own, looking for any other interesting shapes or marks, but found nothing. He dropped it, making a mental note to ask Basso if he knew anything of it when he next saw him.

Moving on, he picked up the huge coat again and moved to cover the large unconscious man in it, straightening it out and laying it on top of him. Something heavy fell out of it and skittered across the wooden floor before coming to a stop just short of the window, making a dull clinking sound as it went.

A mask.  
Garrett stood up slowly and approached it. It looked like a skull with the jaw sewn on with some kind of thick wire and different types of lenses in the sockets where the eyes should have been. Gold, black and shining dully, he picked it up. It looked unique, like it had been constructed especially for someone, was undoubtedly highly valuable. It unnerved him. He didn’t like it. Whoever carried this kind of mask clearly wanted both to conceal their identity while provoking fear, which in Garrett’s opinion, was never a good combination. He carried it over towards the table at the other end of the room and set it down, drawing up a chair and sitting down, keeping the unconscious man and the mask both within his field of vision, grabbing a knife and a long stake of wood, beginning to sharpen it to a point.

Thankfully, he had no need to leave the clocktower. It was going to be a long night.


	2. The Man and the Mask

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Corvo wakes up. Garrett is disgruntled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much to all you guys who left me kudos, subscribed, bookmarked, and especially those of you who left comments!  
> Update schedule is fixed now too, will upload a chapter every Wednesday afternoon. Hope you guys enjoy!

It was very early in the morning when the large stranger even began to stir. Under the cover of the night, Garrett was lit only by a single candle flickering away, hood up, mask on, and armour donned. Just in case. The blackjack sat on the table next to him within a second’s reach, casting long black shadows, illuminated on one side by the soft orange light of the candle, and the strange mask that had fallen out of the man’s pocket also sat close by, next to the blackjack. He had been working lazily and distractedly for hours now, slowly whittling away at several wooden stakes, sharpening them to a point, before setting them down in a wicker basket at his side, picking up a new piece of wood, and repeating the process. All the while, he had been staring at the lumped figure on his floor, looking away only to retrieve fresh wood for the ever growing pile of weapons collecting by his chair. Occasionally when the blisters or splinters got too much, he stopped and picked up the mask, studying it intently. It had been so silent, with only the occasional distant crowing of the city crows, that when the man stirred and coughed, Garrett had frozen for a minute, momentarily believing someone had broken in.

Reaching for his blackjack, he stood up for the first time in hours, stretching his muscles subconsciously, cautiously approaching the figure on the floor. The man wasn’t moving too much, although there were hints of the beginning of a struggle against his bindings. He squinted and scrunched his face up, grimacing against the impressive bruises appearing on his face, before attempting to look around to ascertain his surroundings. The struggling stopped abruptly as he tried to free his hands without apparently realising how tied up they were, breathing heavily. He had not yet seen Garrett creeping up to him, hugging the shadows, all the while armed with blackjack, just out of his line of sight, staying silent and observing what the other would do next.

The man’s wriggling resumed - and then intensified. The coat slowly became displaced and fell off the body, revealing the mark on his hand. Each time he struggled, it glowed a faint greenish-gold and then dimmed, guttural grunts escaping his throat. Agitation was understandable given the situation, but Garrett wondered if this guy didn’t remember nearly breaking his window down and making one hell of a ruckus not 24 hours ago? He wasn’t sure what the glowing mark was for, but decided it probably wouldn’t be good for him to find out, not yet anyway. Garrett took as close a look at it as he could from his hiding spot. He wasn’t sure what the feeling was that it was giving him, but it wasn’t a feeling he was familiar with, despite having had his fair share of encounters with marks, symbols, and strange chanting. The.. power? Energy? Whatever it was that he could feel from the mark was intense. Still, he thought, his curiosities would undoubtedly get the best of him at some point. He waited for the frustrated-sounding grunts to subside and the wriggling to reduce to a resigned stillness before he even considered showing his (still heavily masked) face.

Giving the man a wide berth, Garrett stepped into his field of view, ensuring that his blackjack was clearly visible and his hood and mask were adequately obscuring his face. He said nothing. The man on the floor stared at him, looking both startled and having a glassy look in his eyes. Whatever had happened to him must have been pretty brutal, but still, thought Garrett, he had no sympathy for anyone who came banging on his window, attracting attention when he least needed it, regardless of how hurt they were.

He could almost hear Basso calling him a soft touch and to stop kidding himself.

“What’s your name?” Garrett said after some time, ignoring imaginary-Basso. He wasn’t sure if he was even expecting an answer, but it was worth at least asking. He couldn’t have this guy tied up for the whole time he was there, and he had to make an effort to get on his good side. He was too big to safely knock out again and deposit in some dark corner, it would break his back (and maybe the surrounding environment) to have to carry him over bridges, up ropes and down ladders, and there was no guarantee he didn’t know how to find his way back and exact revenge on him. The evil-looking mask didn’t help matters either, and look evil it did, roughly moulded metal forming the shape of a skull, jaw detached, dislocated, cracked, but held on with dull golden wire, brass-rimmed lenses sat where the eyes should have been, staring, staring, staring.

The other man paused for a second, grinding his teeth. He appeared displeased by the question but, not having much to lose anyway, he decided to answer truthfully. “Corvo. Attano.” The accent was thick, not from around these parts, but still intelligible.

 _Strange name_ , Garrett thought, perplexed, “You’re not from around here are you, Corvo Attano?”

Corvo didn’t appear to register what Garrett was saying and had resumed struggling against the restraints. His movements were strong but slow and erratic, almost drunken, and the mark on his hand started glowing and dimming again. With each passing second Corvo looked more and more panicked, and fearing a situation where the guards actually investigated the clock tower for once, Garret stepped directly in front of Corvo and leant over him.

“You’re not going to scream are you? It’s better for both of us if you just stay quiet but I can shut you up if I need to,” He flashed the blackjack, “Please just cooperate with me.”

That appeared to do the trick. Corvo stopped, straightened his back, adopted a more rigid posture, and stared Garrett in the eyes, more clarity edging slowly into his gaze. Slowly, he shook his head. He didn’t remember getting to this place, didn’t remember much of the previous week at all, and what he did remember was a lot of pain, a lot of exhaustion, and a lot of hiding in a city he wasn’t familiar with in any capacity. What troubled him more was that he hadn’t seen his mask in a while now, and being too tied up to search for it and ensure it was hidden, he made the safe assumption that it was still hidden in his coat. He didn’t know who this man was or what his intentions were, but hopefully with a little bit of… ah… persuasion, he would let him leave unharmed. Of course, the only other outcome would be that the other man would lose his head.

“Yours?” He enquired, looking at Garrett’s obscured face.

Garrett laughed quietly, “Why would I tell you that? You know where I live. You’re a danger to me now.” Seeing the frustrated eye rolls of Corvo, he pushed further, pointing the blackjack lazily at his face, “and you’re technically at my mercy here. You’re in no position to deny me that kind of information anyway.”

Corvo laughed inwardly. What a fool. “Would you at least untie me?”

Garrett scowled and then snorted, half in amusement, half in disgust, “Was that a joke?”

“Water then?”

Garrett sniffed, “You’re not in a position to be making requests, but water I can do.” he studied the other man before turning on his heel and making to get him a drink. He no longer heard the scuffles and grunts of a struggle against bindings as he retreated. When he returned, the other man was still lying on his back, his eyes resigned and listless. Realising the futility of having this guy take his own drink, the smaller man half dragged Corvo into a sitting position against the balustrade and held the drink up to his mouth. It was only now that Garrett realised just how unwell Corvo looked, with big dark circles underneath his eyes, hollow cheekbones and bruises prominent against the pale and faintly wrinkled skin.

The other man sighed and leant back into the wood as his thirst was quenched. His stomach was vaguely queasy but he ignored this, endeavouring not to vomit. Moreso, he was still very tired, and although he had technically spent the last few hours asleep, he had not woken up any semblance of refreshed and was still exhausted. He refused to let his guard down however and stared straight ahead, trying not to reveal to the other man how awful he felt.

Garrett crouched down in front of him and studied him for some time longer before getting up and returning to his chair, continuing to observe Corvo from his vantage point. His head injury appeared not to be bleeding anymore and his speech wasn’t as slurred as it had been when he had woken up, so he decided there was no cause for concern regarding that. There was no way he would be able to get him any sort of medical attention if things went wrong, and he didn’t want anyone dying in his clocktower. That would just be too much hassle.

Garrett watched as Corvo gradually slumped forward over several hours. The occasional chimes of the huge clock only stirred him as he continued to sleep silently and heavily, his great chest rising and falling only slightly. Must be nice, Garrett thought. His hand twitched under the moonlight as the other man watched, occasionally looking down to sharpen another stick.

\----------------------

When Corvo did wake, it was still dark in the room, possibly the very early hours of the morning. He looked over at the other man sat on the chair and saw that he was asleep now, head tilted back, legs stretched out in front of him, one arm crossed over his stomach and the other sat on the table next to… wait. His mask. That bastard.

Corvo wasn’t sure what to do. Although there wasn’t much he could do about the other man having seen his face, if he were to get out of here alive, he needed that mask. He couldn’t remember what he had done to land himself in this hole, but knowing his history and line of work, he was quite possibly in serious trouble with the guards and a mask would all but guarantee a successful escape. He still wasn’t feeling well after having woken up in this strange place but he felt strong enough to walk, maybe even run if he wanted. Ideally after some food. The only way to get it back would be to remove the restraints from his wrists.

There was a ruffling at the window nearby, accompanied by the rapid beating of black wings and a hoarse caw, indicating the arrival of a magpie. Thinking it a wild magpie, Corvo looked at it, wondering if the other man was feeding stray birds up here, all alone, in his little tower. Wondered if there would soon be hundreds more and there would be bird shit all over the place. _Wouldn’t surprise me_ , he thought, but as it set itself down, it shook its leg and a small piece of paper detached itself and floated downwards landing on the floor, writing facing upwards. A note.

“Garrett, need to talk. Come to SR. -B”

Garrett. This man’s name was Garrett. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled with some kind of recognition but he brushed it off. Seemed apt for a nocturnal shut-in with eye bags on his eye bags though, thought Corvo.  
The magpie appeared to be waiting around for something, probably food, but it jumped and flew off when a loud yell reverberated around the clock tower.

“Stop following me! Leave me alone!”

There was the sound of a fist travelling through the air and a flurry of legs, as the table where Garrett had been sitting was sent clattering to the floor.

Corvo jumped, his heart pounding, and turned his head towards the shout. Garrett’s mask had dropped down off the bottom of his face and he looked deathly pale, a sheen of sweat covering his face, his knuckles white and left hand boasting little red crescents, blood beading where his fingernails had dug into his skin. His eyes were wide and panicked, his mouth still pulled down into an open-mouthed frown, lips dry and cracked, his chest just now beginning to slow from the hyperventilation. The table had been flipped onto its side in the process, Corvo’s mask now sitting on the floor, facing him, tempting him, shining dully in the morning light.

Garrett took a good two minutes before he seemed to come out of his trance, before slowly sitting back on his chair, a blank look in his eyes. He stared off into the distance for a very long time, ignoring Corvo’s pointed glare.

“Are you okay?” Corvo asked after some time, softening slightly to the man, though he wouldn’t like to admit it.

Garrett came back to the present, avoided his gaze and pulled his mask back up, “Fine,” he said curtly, “I’m fine.”

Corvo wasn’t convinced. He watched the other man stand up and start pacing, agitation evident in his fitful strides. His eyes flickered from the window, down to the machinery of the clock tower, up to the rafters. Checking entry and exit points. Corvo knew the drill.

“What’s that?” Garrett, satisfied that all entry points were secure and had stopped pacing. He was looking at the little slip of paper the magpie had delivered earlier, and he walked over to it, stooped over and picked it up. A message from Basso. Not unusual, but inconvenient considering the circumstances. He didn’t have a (tame) bird of his own and Jenivere wasn’t present for him to send a message back explaining the situation, which meant that he could either ignore the message, which would undoubtedly result in further, angrier notes from Basso and potentially the loss of a small job or two, or he could just blackjack this unexpected visitor and hope he was still reasonably incapacitated by the time he got back. Leaving him in good working order was a mistake that could result in loss of loot or life, and was too risky. Garrett looked slowly towards Corvo.

Seeming to understand what Garrett was thinking, Corvo’s mind sprang into action, in a borderline panic. “What was it?” he was wide-eyed, pretending not to already have read the note.

“A message,” he responded, “Didn’t think it had a lot to do with you.”

The snark was real. And so was the dangerous glint in his eye.

“Listen, I’m not sure what you’re planning but whatever it is, it’s a bad idea.”

Garrett raised an eyebrow cynically, “Convince me then.”

Corvo had to think quickly. It wasn’t often that he was on the receiving end of death threats, “I don’t know about you but if-” he swallowed, his mouth dry, “If you kill me, won’t the guards notice eventually? Must be hard to dump a body from a place like this. I’m not here to make your life hard. And a freshly-dead man discovered in a clocktower would make it very, very hard.” He hated grovelling, he had always considered it low and cowardly but now he found himself in the other position, he didn’t seem to be able to help himself.

Garrett paused for a minute. He hadn’t intended on killing the other man so he wasn’t sure where that idea had come from, although all things considered, knocking him unconscious would probably vastly increase the chance of accidental death given his current state. On second thoughts, he wasn’t actually sure if he cared, “I don’t want to kill you,” a protracted pause, “I need to go out and do something.”

Corvo said nothing, merely staring the other man in the eye. He didn’t let the intense relief washing over him show itself. He had to live at all costs, for Emily. He changed tack, “I suppose you’ll just leave me here then yes?”

“Yes. Probably. I haven’t decided yet,” Garrett said, lying through his teeth, unsheathing his blackjack covertly behind his back. He had made up his mind. He turned around and pocketed the mask from the floor (having become all too aware of how keenly Corvo had been eyeing it), deliberately obscuring the action with his cloak so Corvo couldn’t see what he was doing.

The next few actions happened in less than a second.

“How long will-” a loud crack sounded through the clocktower and Corvo crumpled to the side before Garrett had even managed to stand up straight after striking him. There was a flurry of movement as the murder of crows in the rafters fled for the sky, a demented cloak of feathers and beating wings and hoarse screeches. With luck, Corvo would be awake in a couple of minutes but unlikely to be able to even think about escaping for a good few hours, maybe even a day. He had bought himself some time.

Garrett turned on his heel. His leg buckled, a shooting pain emerging from his thigh. Hissing, he stepped back for a moment, before steeling himself: Corvo wouldn’t be out forever, however convenient it would be for Garrett. He made for the window and was gone in a flash of cloak, the muffled sound of the crows still ringing in his ears.


	3. The Library

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Garrett sees Basso. Corvo has a discussion. Garrett does some research.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's Wednesday my dudes

The Siren’s Rest was unusually quiet, especially for a warm evening like this. Garrett had had little trouble making his way across the city rooftops, deftly swinging, climbing and dropping his way across balconies and roofs. Shadows enveloped him as the city goings-on happened beneath, unaware of the swift shadow above. Even on his journey there, there hadn’t been as many guards posted as normal. A welcome relief.

Basso was sat in his usual booth, pint glass in hand, black-and-white Jenivere at his side. He stared concerned down at the grubby table, tracing circles with his right index finger, a frown written on his face. Garrett bought himself a drink and slunk over to Basso, waving a hand in front of his face before sitting down opposite him. Basso looked up at him for a split-second before a faint smile graced his lips.

“Glad to see you got my note,” Basso began, then paused, “Wonderin’ what you been up to lately. Haven’t heard much from you.”

Garrett looked coolly but not unpleasantly back at him, taking a short swig from the dirty mug, “Be worried if I didn’t, wouldn’t you? I know you Basso. Let’s cut the crap, why am I here?”

Basso looked taken aback. This was unusually confrontational for someone like Garrett. He looked him in the eye, bracing himself for the talk he had been planning. “The client for the job I gave you last week? What sorta progress you made on it?” Basso knew the answer full-well but wanted to hear Garrett’s side of the story before passing any judgement.

Garrett paused, sighed, and looked down, embarrassed at the story, “I made a mistake Basso. Didn’t scope out the place properly, guards alerted, complete mess. I’m waiting for the problem to die down for a few days and then I’ll try again.”

Basso nodded, “Uh huh? Well the client seems to have heard that the job didn’t go as planned and now they want to know more. You think you’ll be able to get that book within the week?”

Garrett sighed, taking another long draught of his drink, “Yeah I think I’ll manage. Won’t be making the same mistake when I’m there next. I’ll be in and out of there in no time. You don’t have any contacts I can get information out of do you?”

Basso thought for a moment before shaking his head slowly, “I don’t think I do. But if I do remember someone, I’ll get the message to you. Probably just best to try again but stay on your guard. If anything goes wrong I won’t blame you but you are going to be the one to tell the client.” he held up his hands, before returning to tracing circles on the table. 

“Any idea about the client or what they want so bad with that book?” Garrett asked offhandedly.

“Nope,” was the solemn reply, “Kept their face hidden all secret-like. Promised to pay good money, seems to have some kind of sway with the watch, suggested that they could get the Black Tax reduced for us ‘specially,” he leaned forward, “‘course it’s prudent to exercise some kinda… ah, scepticism with these kinda claims, but even if it’s not true, the money is worth the job for me.”

 _Of course it is, you sneaky bastard_ Garrett said inwardly, thinking of the 10% Basso creamed off his every fenced job, “And the book?”

“I know as much as you do, my friend. Has some gems on the top, red binding-”

“And probably sat in the middle of some room rather than on a bookshelf, yeah,” Garrett finished his sentence for him, “No idea what’s inside though?”

Basso shook his head abashed, still staring into the table, “No.”

Garrett should have known. The job was suspicious, very much so, but Basso seemed keen on having it done and Garrett had no other incoming jobs as far as he knew and he still needed to feed himself. Being caught last time had only piqued his interest, the lure of the challenge buzzing around his brain after the initial shock had worn off. One more question.

“And how to get the book to the client? We arranging a dead drop?” He certainly hoped so. He wanted to stay as far away as possible from secretive clients: demanding mysterious books for potentially nefarious purposes was usually a bad combination. He wanted to take his gold and scram.

Basso nodded. “Client said they would let me know as soon as they hear news that the book has been stolen, but I’m planning a place that we can drop it at, and I’ll let ‘em know that once they get back to me. After you finish the job, swing by and let me know. I’ll tell the client, they leave the payment, and the book’ll be there four hours later. Sound good?”

Garrett, feeling relieved, nodded and smiled slightly. He felt safer when there were dead drops for clients he hadn’t yet met, and they were few and far between. He finished off his drink, and remembered the question he had made a mental note to ask Basso earlier. “One more thing-” He produced a piece of parchment from his cloak and began to sketch the symbol he had seen on Corvo’s hand the night before and held it up for the fence to see, “You ever seen this symbol before?”

Basso took a long look at the symbol, chewing on his words, “I think so, yes. Couldn’t tell you exactly where I’ve seen it before though. Think it’s foreign.” he shrugged, but something about the symbol was making him nervous. Whatever it was, it wasn’t a good sign, “‘fraid I’m not going to be much help on that. Why do you wanna know?” 

Choosing his words carefully, Garrett made up an excuse, “Found a note on the floor headed by that symbol. Curious.” He snatched the symbol away a little too quickly and stuffed it in his boot for safekeeping, “Guess if it’s foreign it doesn’t mean much here right?”

“Right,” Basso replied slowly, looking the thief up and down, entirely unconvinced by the hurried explanation, yet not wanting to ask more questions. Once Garrett had decided to keep secrets from Basso, there was no convincing him otherwise, there was no doubt the fence knew very little about him anyway. But Basso was still cautious about the origins of the symbol. These things didn’t just ‘appear on a random note on the ground’. They were dangerous, “Garrett. Stay safe.”

Garrett stood up to leave, ignoring Basso’s plea, signalling the end of the conversation, “Good to see you Basso,” he said in earnest, “We should meet up again sometime.”

Basso said nothing, simply watching the cloaked man disappear out the pub and into the shadows.

\----------------------

Mercifully, Corvo was awake when Garrett got back to the clock tower; albeit sluggish and very, very angry. He glared at the thief as he entered through the window, lips pursed, still slumped on his side. It hadn’t been too long since Garrett had left, but it was long enough that, due to being unable to either sit himself upright or lie down on his side thanks to his still-bound hands and feet, Corvo’s abdominal muscles had seized up almost completely and the leg and arm he had been resting on were going numb and beginning to tingle.

Seeing the problem, Garrett walked over to Corvo and knelt down, helping the larger man into a sitting position as he groaned in pain, looking even less happy than when Garrett had arrived. He steadied himself against the wooden post, freezing and bracing himself for a second against the stars exploding in his eyes and the darkness creeping into the edges of his vision, willing himself not to pass out for a third time in two days. When it had passed, he looked back up at Garrett, who was stooping over him, with something unreadable in his eyes. Corvo would have thought it was concern, but someone treating him this badly and preventing him from leaving clearly had no feelings of the sort. His head pounded away , but not bad enough for him to show the thief how much it really did hurt.

“You know you could have just asked me not to move,” Corvo hissed, not even bothering to hide the biting hurt in his voice, “You don’t need to knock me out every time you need to leave.”

Garrett said nothing, brought a flask of water to the bound man and tentatively raised it to his lips, letting him take a sip. Corvo seemed to accept the drink without much of a fight in apparent resignation. It was true, Garrett felt guilty for subjecting him to this but in his mind, what other choice did he have? If the other man alerted the city watch to his presence, that could mean the end of his career, or at the very worst, his life. He had seen thieves executed before for much less. The prospect of a well-placed non-lethal blow to a - not a _captive_ per se, more of a guest - was much more pleasant than the prospect of losing his own life. Plus, eventually his guest would be on his merry way home, as soon as Garrett found out a way to find where he had come from and put him on a boat there without him realising it, or simply persuade him to do so. Much easier said than done, although he wouldn’t admit that to himself, and he would need help, though he wasn’t sure who would be able to help him.

“This looks expensive,” he said, holding the mask out for Corvo to see, whose expression was so dark now that it looked positively thunderous. Corvo said nothing, even though his heart was hammering against his ribs and his mind was screaming silently at the other man to just drop it, to let him go. He would tear this man apart with his hands if he could. He was taunting him, Corvo wouldn’t stand for it.

“Drop it,” he said, his voice faltering. He cursed himself inwardly, “It’s not yours.”

“That’s what I do best,” Garrett looked at Corvo, and back to the mask. He turned on his heel and walked slowly back to the table and chair, sitting down and momentarily studying the mask again before setting it down. “If I leave again, can I trust you not to try moving, screaming, or otherwise being a huge pain in the ass?” for good measure, he flashed the mask in Corvo’s direction, “I’ll be taking this with me of course.”

Corvo grunted, defeated. “Don’t lose it. I need it. If I want to get out of this city alive.”

Garrett softened. He knew the feeling. The feeling of being hunted. He changed tack, “Are you hungry?”, his voice was softer than before, the concern now definitely present. Seeing Corvo’s slow nod in response, he went to the store rooms and brought him some food: a hunk of bread, slices of cured meat, cheese, a red wine Garrett had pilfered from some rich old man’s cellar. 

Corvo wasn’t sure whether to trust the man or not, but his stomach demanded he eat something. Even if Garrett had put an arrow through one of the birds in the rafters there and then, and served it up to him raw on a plate, he’d probably eat it. He tried not to stuff the food down his face but it was so hard, it was so good and he hadn’t eaten for so long, and the wine tasted just as sweet. The headache and nausea melted away as he filled his stomach. He was sure he looked disgusting but Garrett seemed preoccupied with his own bread, so he wasn’t concerned. This must have been the first proper meal he’d had in at least a week.

“Thank you,” Corvo offered cautiously, having finished his meal, “I appreciate it.”

Garrett nodded, brushing the thanks off with no real response. He was satisfied at this point that he could trust the man not to cause too much of a problem in his home, but still not enough to let him free. He still needed to leave the clock tower to research the target of the job and the symbol on Corvo’s hand. Actually… seeing as he was in such a good mood, Garrett thought…

“What’s that mark on your hand?”

Corvo looked surprised, staring down at the tattoo like he’d forgotten he even had it. He clenched his other hand over the mark and drew it back into his chest protectively, “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the answer was stupid but he was exhausted and it was the best he had.

Garrett sighed. It had been worth a shot. He shrugged at Corvo, waved the mask in his face a couple more times, and alighted the room again with a bounce in his step, save for the occasional prickling and heat of the wound in his thigh. He would find out what that symbol meant whether the other man liked it or not. He was heading for two places: the city library, which was at this point closed and guarded; and the chapel where the book was supposed to be housed. His first stop was the library.

The building was dark, gothic and heavily fortified. It had initially been for use by the public, including the poor but gradually had become a playground for the rich as corruption increased in the watch; especially after the rumours of plague from foreign lands started spreading among the citizens. Garrett had been disgusted at this turn of events but what could he do, apart from continuing to use it to his advantage? He was more than familiar with the layout of the library at this point, knew the patterns guards took between the dusty rows, knew how to reach the top of the bookcases and that the watch, being badly paid, poorly treated, and subjected to mind-numbing routines, would rarely look up to check for intruders such as himself. One thing they did have going for them was that the job was probably one of the safest in the city, for a watchman anyway. Garrett didn’t want trouble.

He didn’t need a list of the sections or floors, he’d been to this place frequently already, and as he crept into the building via an open window on the top floor, he smiled inwardly at the comforting smell of old books rising from the lower floors. Such a shame this wasn’t really a public space any more. He descended with little trouble, crawling through vents and up drain pipes, before arriving at the third floor, some four floors down from his entry point. The exercise of getting through this building was getting to him more than it usually did, took more of his energy out of him, and several times he had to simply stop and regain his composure. He brushed this off however, attributing it to the fact that he hadn’t been doing much for the past couple of days, and continued through the library, determined to find the information he sought.

Garrett wasn’t sure what book he was looking for, so he started in the religion section. Most of the books were focused on the common religions in The City, having broken into his fair share of chapels and religious houses; he already had a working knowledge of these, but the symbol he needed to know about had nothing to do with those. Basso was right, he had known before the fence had said that they were foreign but it was good to have some kind of confirmation. Reassured that no guards were coming around this floor any time soon (for at least 30 minutes now, Garrett had checked) he dropped down and started tracing his fingers along the bookcase slowly, reading each and every spine. It had been a while since he’d done this sort of honest-to-god sleuthing, and quite honestly he found it cathartic. He had trailed his finger over so many different generic The Complete History of Religion and Fasting for Idiots that his brain was just beginning to turn off when a quiet noise sounded from a corner of the library, making him freeze stock still. 

That had to be the door.  
There was no way.  
The guards had a pattern.

He crept away from the source of the noise as fast as he could do while still remaining reasonably silent and quickly scaled the side of a bookcase, his leg dragging over the edge unceremoniously. He ensured he was completely cloaked in darkness before even daring to look in the direction of the footsteps that were now moving quickly towards where he had been. They sounded quick and purposeful, and Garrett hoped that the sound of the leather sole thud- thud- thudding against the flagstone floor would be enough to cover his own laboured breathing. The figure came into his vision now, rounding a bookcase corner. He- or they- were covered in a floor-length cloak, a wide hood covering the back of their head and a decorative mask concealing the front: porcelain, elegant, painted in red and gold, and varnished to a shine. Garrett wasn’t able to get a good look at their face because of this, or for that matter, the rest of them, being clothed entirely in black. He couldn’t even make out the body shape.

And then  
they  
stopped.

Garrett held back a choke as the masked face turned upwards exactly towards where he was hiding. He gripped the edge of the bookcase with one hand so tightly that his knuckles turned white and he bit the back of the other hand way too hard, the pain not even registering over the terror that hitched in his throat. His heart hammered so hard against his ribs that he worried that even several feet away, this stranger would be able to hear it.

It felt like years.  
There was no way this person could see him.  
He was completely covered by shadow.

He was shaking too hard; he knew that an attempt on this stranger’s consciousness with the blackjack was futile. He didn’t know if there were more of them, if…

They turned away.  
They hadn’t seen him.

They turned without saying a word and continued walking briskly down the aisle, Garrett still stuck, still covered crouched cowering on top of the tall bookcase, didn’t even stop gripping the side, didn’t even stop shaking didn’t even stop biting his hand, just spun spun spun until the world stopped tipping and tilting and the bile stopped threatening to come up his throat and just just just-

He couldn’t blow this. He physically gripped the back of his head with one hand, fingers grasping the hair through the hood hard enough to hurt, and the other dug the mercifully short nails into his cheekbones, just enough to ground him in the present. The steps continued retreating down the aisle so Garrett could still see the figure, before they came to the wooden panelling at the end of the room and stopped abruptly. Garrett could hardly see what was happening from the other end of the room but there was no way all the riches in the world could convince him to move from this spot, to make more noise. They seemed to be feeling around one of the wooden panels, and a sharp _click_ echoed in the room before there was a loud rumbling sounded and a gaping black hole appeared in the wall. The figure disappeared down the hole and all that Garrett was left with was a rumbling as the door closed and then the silence that was now oppressively creepy, and the stink of moth-eaten relics.

The research he had originally intended to do on Corvo’s mark had completely disappeared from his mind.

Garrett almost felt compelled to explore further. Almost. There was no way he was going to make it any further towards uncovering the secrets of this library tonight without passing out, so feet shaking, he crept back the way he had come, up and up and out of the building, leaving it behind, not even bothering to take a second look. He wouldn’t bother scoping out the location of the job tonight as he had initially planned, he decided. He needed to lie down.


	4. Questions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maybe Garrett is beginning to build some trust. Corvo discovers a secret.

Garrett felt insulted.

Garrett felt violated.

Garrett had had the one thing he actually felt safe doing taken away from him with a single look and he hated himself for it; more than any posh, stuck up, hoity-toity rich boy; more than any corrupt official; more than the person whose single glance had shaken him so very much. Not to detract from the fact that he still wanted to batter the living daylights out of them.

He’d come back to the tower fuming, dark clouds practically forming above his head, swung with some difficulty over to the desk sitting at the side of his room and began drawing up plans distractedly, working out how he was going to find out what he needed to know about the symbol, and how he was going to tackle the job he had discussed with Basso earlier. The room was rapidly filling with light at this point, so whatever happened, it would be at least 12 hours before he could even leave the clocktower again, but still he felt nervous and on edge. There was a silent war raging in his head, arguing back-and-forth about whether the masked person had actually seen him or not, when Corvo interrupted from behind him, making him jump and whip around, having forgotten that the other man was there.

“Stop ruminating.”

Garrett turned around and stared at him, incandescent, “You don’t even know what happened.”

Corvo kept his mouth shut, staring at Garrett as he glared back. He noticed that the thief’s skin looked almost grey, a thin sheen of sweat covering his cheeks, his lips a dark shade bordering on almost purple. He was breathing quickly and shivering slightly, wrapping his arms around himself in a vain attempt to stop, not even bothering to hide it from Corvo. He had clearly travelled here very quickly, and the nights had been darkening and getting colder thanks to the incoming winter, but what Corvo was actually interested in was what Garrett had seen to unsettle him so badly. He didn’t seem like the type to scare easily. Corvo, however, didn’t want to push his luck by asking him what happened. He let the thief continue his frenetic scribbles, watching curiously from the floor. 

Garrett wanted to be sure that the next time he returned to the library this wouldn’t happen again. He had to be sure of it. Maybe next time he needed to return earlier in the night or quench more of the candles or even barricade the door if he had to but he had to make sure it wouldn’t. He knew that the library closed at 9pm, so he planned on arriving an hour or so afterwards, to give himself more time to do his research. His heart rate slowly slowed back to normal as he reassured himself and the temperature of the room rose and the reassuring bustle of stonemarket floated in through his window. First, he thought, he had to go to the chapel he had intended to go to the previous night, and then he would take on the library. Regain his confidence. His brain was beginning to feel fuzzy and his eyelids were growing heavy. He needed to sleep, he knew that much.

Corvo had been sat behind him for some time now but being bound was becoming very uncomfortable. He needed to stand up and walk around, felt strong enough to do so after waking up in the tower, and felt that now was his chance, while the other man was tired and distracted. He wasn’t sure where his blade had gone after the previous couple of nights, but he hadn’t been interrogated by Garrett about it, so he assumed that that was still hidden securely in a secret pocket in his coat, where he usually carried it. He hadn’t been planning on taking Garrett out, but it was good to have around, just in case. He wasn’t unprofessional, he didn’t kill random people, especially when word might carry back to Dunwall, back to the palace, even if this person had basically kept them captive. Who knows, Corvo thought, this clocktower might have been keeping him safe from the rest of The City, might give him information on how to complete his contract, Garrett might know who he needed to find. It was entirely in his own interests to stay put and not to rock the boat, for now anyway.

“Could you untie me?” He asked for the second time in two days.

Miraculously, Garrett complied. He was tired of having to look after this stranger, tired of having to feed and water him by himself, tired of worrying about what he would do while not in Garrett’s immediate line of sight. “You’d better not cause trouble,” he said, jabbing the larger man in the chest after cutting his bindings, and heading off to his bed, “a freshly-dead man discovered in a clocktower would make your life very, very hard. And believe me, my contacts know exactly who has been staying in this tower for the past few days.” He hoped that the lie hadn’t been too obvious.

Corvo smirked, hearing the words he had said earlier repeated back to him and nodded. “I won’t.” he assured the thief. As if he would believe that. He really was tired. 

Garrett spent the day thrashing and writhing instead of sleeping. Every time he thought he was about to drop off to sleep, terrifying images would appear in front of his eyes: that masked stranger in the library; the silence as the dead in the graveyard thrust their pale, rotten hands from the ground and began to walk; a dark figure standing in front of him, the face of death, grasping him by the wrists, thrusting an unseen knife between his ribs before walking off into the sleep-addled brain fog. Even the clunking-clanking of the clocktower machinery failed to lull him into a restful sleep.

Corvo was busy upstairs. He had managed to find his knife in his coat pocket, along with several other artefacts. He had spent the day trying to piece together what had happened to him before he had woken up in the tower, had tried racking his brains for an answer, had sat very still, counted his breaths, tapped along to the machinery, and only come up with a few details:

He had come to The City from Dunwall at the request of someone. He couldn’t remember who that someone was, as they had only revealed their face when he had arrived, or so he assumed, but he had definitely been needed here. The journey had been a deeply unpleasant three days by boat, but there must have been a compelling reason for him to travel so far;  
He definitely hadn’t been wearing his mask in the hours directly preceding his loss of consciousness. He knew because he had a very painful and dark bruise on his face, which wasn’t corroborated by the state of the mask. A bruise that deep would be backed up by dents or even dirt on the mask if he had been wearing it at the time;  
He had several other bruises and lacerations on his body that made him sure that he had been physically attacked. There were shallow cuts and scrapes all over him, but this was particularly true for his hands and arms, which seemed to bear the brunt of the damage. Corvo knew from his line of work that a detail like that meant only that a victim had been trying to defend themselves. It was weird to have to do this sort of analysis on his own body. He was just grateful that he was alive to do it.

His pockets themselves held little outside of the ordinary: just some loose change, his knife, a yellowed note. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled. Garrett must have his mask somewhere in this tower. Corvo had been working on his own notes for some time now, listening to the occasional yell or choke or fist swing from the floor below and once again it was beginning to get dark so he knew he didn’t have much time left. He had a quick look over all the surfaces on the top level of the clock tower, finding nothing underneath all the papers and books and bags of gear that were stored there, before descending to the place where Garrett was sleeping, hand wrapped tightly around the blackjack, leather armour still donned. Seemed strange to Corvo, but maybe it was because he didn’t feel comfortable completely letting his guard down around him. Sensible decision.

Corvo set to work rummaging around in the various chests and cupboards that Garrett had on the lower floor, still carrying the knife. He was a messy man, had left a lot of his stuff just lying around, dumped various precious jewels and expensive-looking things on top of each other, hoarding all the glittery things he could get his hands on, like some kind of magpie. However, there was no sign of the mask yet. Corvo wondered if Garrett was sleeping with the damn thing. Would be just his luck.

Garrett, seeming to have sensed the other man’s presence, opened his eyes. Corvo in a blind panic, dropped the knife to the floor and kicked it underneath one of the counters, knowing that if Garrett saw him with an offensive weapon in his clocktower, it would break the little trust they had built with each other. Garrett didn’t seem to notice this action, and just screwed his eyes up, his mouth downturned into a frown. “Creepy bastard ain’t ya?”

Corvo said nothing, and wanting to avoid further questions, retreated back upstairs, thinking. There was no way Garrett wasn’t currently holding that mask, there was no other place it could be, unless he’d missed a very obvious hiding place. He looked up. There was no way a crow could carry something that heavy was there…? 

No. He shook the thought off. That was silly. 

The Magpie (that was what he was beginning to call Garrett in his own head by now) having woken up properly this time, ascended the stairs and sat down by the table, munching on a cracker, staring. Why did he have to stare so much? He looked like shit.

“I feel like shit,” The Magpie said, shifting uncomfortably where he sat. 

Corvo nodded in response, trying not to look too shifty. He had heard the cries for help and gasps of fear from Garrett as he had slept that day, but decided not to wake him up so as to continue searching undisturbed. It seemed to be the norm for the other man as he slept. Corvo wasn’t a stranger to nightmares himself but they weren’t as intense as Garrett’s. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to know what was going on in his head.

It was late in the evening at this point. Garrett had been suiting up for a few minutes, sorting out his bow and arrows, double-checking the strength of his emergency ropes, the strength of the harness. One of his boots was developing a small hole which looked like it might let water in but Garrett decided to sort it out when he got back, being short on time. He took a rope arrow and shot it at one of the rafters, ensured it was well and truly stuck by giving it a couple of tugs, and attached the other end to the front of his harness and spent a minute or two rapelling up and down. Corvo watched in interest. He was able to do some cool stuff but he knew better than anybody that he was too heavy for this kind of thing. 

Garrett, seemingly satisfied that his equipment was in good working order, untied himself and made to leave the clocktower. He turned back to Corvo one last time, shooting him a still-distrustful look, once again said “I don’t have to tell you not to cause trouble.” and then alighted.

\----------------------

The chapel that Garrett was going to steal the book from was slightly out of town, off towards the very northern part of The City. It was quite a long journey from Stonemarket, covering difficult terrain including very heavily guarded sections, a graveyard (why were there so many of these in The City? Garrett would never know), and a very poor slum area with little cover and no means of bypassing it without going at least one hour out of his way. On top of that, there were some tricky obstacles including weakened roofs and unstable guttering and difficult jumps. Garrett had rarely been to this place before this job had crossed his path purely due to how hard and time-consuming it was to get there, and in his profession, time was money.

Thankfully, the journey was largely uneventful, save for an unfortunate slip here and an occasional run-in with the watch, and he arrived at the chapel with his head still on his shoulders and his sanity intact. 

The chapel itself wasn’t that intimidating, only appeared to have two stories from the outside, with a spire that didn’t look out of place when compared to all the other chapels and churches in the area. It was built with sandy grey stones and had a large stained glass window on one side, looking out onto the one area where there wasn’t a thick coverage of trees, and the cleared path seemed to lead off into the forest. Where it went, Garrett wasn’t sure, and he had neither the time nor the interest to investigate. He was here for information.

A local he had bumped into on the way here had filled him in on some details after Garrett had slipped him five gold pieces. The man, middle aged, greying and lightly bearded had taken him behind his house as guards marched up and down the village, telling him many things about the place. The most important being that people seldom entered or left; the lights were never on; the front doors were barred from behind (meaning that there must be a back passage that Garrett had missed the first time around); and that the villager’s daughter had once smashed a window, which had never been repaired and nobody had made a fuss about it other than her father who had sent her to bed without dinner. Garrett knew to take this information with a pinch of salt. It was unlikely that the villager was up watching the chapel in the dead of night like Garrett liked to do, so his details regarding how often people entered was likely skewed. He had walked away feeling cheated of his five gold.

He crept around the outside of the chapel, staying well within the trees surrounding it, taking notes. It was very possible that the theoretical back passage had something to do with the forest clearing behind the chapel, so he focussed his efforts around that side. There were a lot of invasive plant species growing on that wall, making it difficult to see if there was anything of note: if there was, then this would likely be where he had messed up last time. Deciding it was worth the risk of being caught, he crept up to the wall and started rummaging through the ivy, trying not to damage or disturb it. And there it was, an old oak wood door bound in iron with a ring for pulling it open. Garrett snorted. Such a simple detail and he had missed it. He marked the location of the door down on his makeshift map and continued walking around the building, finding nothing else except a large beam sticking out above one of the windows on the second floor. That would be a useful emergency exit.

Deciding to leave it undisturbed for now, he climbed in through the top window again and descended. If he could snag the book tonight, he would, he had decided, but as soon as he heard voices a couple of floors below, he knew the attempt would be futile. There had to be some kind of watch living in the chapel. Must be important. The effects of his attempted break-in were clearly still being felt.

He didn’t risk knocking any of the guards unconscious but used different rooms and vents to creep down to the ground level floor, seeing that the front double doors were indeed barred from behind. He found the room where the book was housed once again but the room was full of guards. It wasn’t worth the risk. In the next room, the one that he had neglected to search the time before, he found a small door in the wall, and observing it, he saw guards coming and going from it. What was odd was that the door didn’t lead into another room, it lead to a very small, dark passage with a lot of stairs, leading downward. So that was where they were coming from. 

Satisfied that he had found the place where the mystery guards were coming from, he left the building, dropping down the side of the wall without any grace, and disappeared off into the night.

\----------------------

Garrett’s next port of call had been causing him a lot more anxiety. He still hadn’t fully recovered from the shock of the previous night, but he needed to know what was through that secret door. After travelling back from the chapel, he arrived at the library and entered through the top floor again, working his way down to the third floor. He could feel his heart pounding with fear already and his steps were less sure than they usually were, he had begun to shake again and he took a rest just before he entered the room with the secret door, trying to regain control of himself. He was still very aware of the patterns the guards took while patrolling the library and waited for one to finish the walk up and down the room before descending through a vent in the wall and walking over the the side of the room where he had seen the masked person open the door.

It took some finding but there was definitely a button in the panelling. It was well disguised, painted the same colour as the surrounding wood, fitted in very tightly so that there were no score marks around it, not even elevated by much more than a fraction of an inch. Garrett had taken at least ten minutes running his hands along the panel over and over again, getting vaguely frustrated, stepping back and wondering if it had actually been here and if it hadn’t just been a figment of his imagination. When he did feel the button and it gave way underneath the pressure of his fingers, he almost laughed, despite his dry mouth. The familiar scraping sounded and the panelling slid back, revealing the dark staircase he had seen the night before. He didn’t even wait, didn’t risk letting himself think about what he was doing: there was something that was either very valuable or of great interest down here and not capitalising on it would be silly, and he didn’t want to risk psyching himself out.

The stale air in the staircase was a lot more oppressive than the silent library rooms, it was damp, it was dark, and it stank of rats and dead things. More than once on his descent, Garrett felt something move against the hole in his boot but tried not to let it disturb him as he continued. He didn’t hear the door trundling shut behind him, which was a good thing, it meant that he was guaranteed a way out if there was no other such route down here.

The steps were coming to an end. There was an orange light stretched out on the floor just in front of Garrett.

What was at the bottom was unimpressive for something that was so difficult to hide, and for that matter, so carefully hidden. In a way it just looked similar to the library above, except smaller, maybe 250, maybe 300 square feet, with thick bookshelves covering the walls. Garrett knew he must have walked a long way down because judging purely by the air, this was underground. There had clearly been a secret passage down the side of the building or something, he wasn’t sure. It made the most sense to him. There wasn’t much apart from the bookshelves and the books contained within them, and oddly enough, there were far fewer books than he had expected. Above ground they had been stuffed onto the shelves; here some of them had fallen on their side if they weren’t backed up with bookends. Some of the bookends did look like they were valuable though, so he pocketed them, not wanting the night to go to waste. 

Satisfied he had picked up the most valuable objects in the room, he began to look through the books that were contained on the shelves. It was not surprising to Garrett that the majority of them were non-fiction discussing various illegal practices, from banned medicine to the occult. Garrett in his search even found a book on thievery. _I’ll take that,_ he whispered to himself, slipping it down his harness. If it didn’t mention him he knew he would be very unimpressed.

In the (very small) religion section, miraculously, Garrett found what he was looking for. It was one of the newer-looking books in the room, albeit very small. It was titled _The Pocket Guide to Overseas Religion, Religious Practices, and Cult Interactions_ and Garrett flicked through it. Towards the end of the book, a large circular symbol caught his eye. This was the one that Corvo had branded onto the back of his hand. Garrett’s heart jumped. Now very aware of the limited time he had before another guard patrolled the fourth floor of the library and cursing himself for not closing the wood panel door, he stuffed it in his bag along with the other things he had picked up, and turned to leave.

One book caught his eye in particular from one of the further corners of the room as he turned. His heart started thudding again and his skin turned cold. It couldn’t be…

He took a step over towards the book, his mind screaming at him to and picked up the book. It was very chunky, bound in red, and had jewels set in the cover. This wasn’t the book that was supposed to be at the chapel, was it?

He clenched the book close to his ribs, pulled up his scarf, and flew lopsidedly back up the stairs, his leg now screaming in pain, just as the door to the fourth floor of the library banged open.

\----------------------

Corvo stood in the clocktower, looking out the window, studying the watch as they walked between buildings, through alleys, up and down stone steps, orange torches in hand, looking for trouble. He didn’t know much about The City but he was willing to bet a pretty penny that they were just as annoying as the guards back in Dunwall, albeit just as stupid. He had never had much animosity for guards until the Outsider had left the mark on his hand and temporarily turned him into a ‘disturber of the peace’, at which point, if he had been able to snap his fingers and have all the guards in the world disappear, he would have done. Sadly, that wasn’t a power that was available for him to learn from the runes.

Garrett had clearly been out doing something other that thievery, which Corvo had assumed was his profession judging by the amount of shiny stuff in the tower. A standard criminal doing standard criminal’s work. Corvo couldn’t judge him for it, having arguably committed far more serious crimes, but he wasn’t sure about the lack of incoming valuables. Maybe Magpie had been up to some investigation in preparation for something, maybe seeing friends, maybe seeing clients. Corvo wasn’t sure. He hadn’t had any of his valuables stolen so he probably didn’t care.

With each guard that snaked their way from one building to the other, the soft warm light of the torches they carried following them. Corvo even saw one thief himself, retreating from the oncoming light and waiting for the guard to pass before snatching a pouch of gold off the guard’s belt - he had laughed heartily at that one. The watch looked easy enough to pass with a bit of care.

Corvo leant on his knuckles one last time before turning back into the room. He needed to find a way of doing this job and then he needed to get back to Dunwall. Being a hired assassin was tricky because a lot of the time, the people asking for his services (who were few and far between - he charged out the nose for it) weren’t able to give a lot of information about the target, either because they didn’t know where the target usually was during the day, or because the meetings he had with clients were very short, quiet, usually held behind a building, and Corvo was very serious about protecting his identity during these meetings.

He remembered the man who had asked him to come to The City had arrived personally in Dunwall and Corvo had met him in a back alley on the other side of the city, and then passed him a note and a bag of cash, and then left immediately. Corvo had pocketed both and then left, not wanted to be spotted with this other person, and then returned to his room, studying the note. It was cryptic.

_Public Enemy No. 1  
Wanted Dead or Alive_

A picture of a man covered in a scarf and cowl. You could hardly even see his face.

_50,000 Gold Reward  
Considered Armed and Dangerous - Report any Sightings to the Watch_

Underneath, the man had scribbled in blotchy ink: “Master Thief - The City - preferably dead”. And that was all he had given him. Corvo took the note out of his coat and studied it again. He wasn’t sure where to find a ‘master thief’ in this city. He wasn’t even sure where to find the nearest pub to try and forget the horrible journey when he had first arrived.

The magpie (the bird, not the man) arrived at the window and croaked hoarsely at Corvo again. He detached the note that it was carrying from his leg and shooed it back away, ignoring the agitated flapping and the angry looks it was giving him. Ignoring the fact that he shouldn’t be reading other people’s mail (who even gets mail delivered by bird these days?) he unrolled it to reveal a small piece of parchment written in the same handwriting of the other note.

“Master thief, hope you’ve nearly finished that job. Client giving me trouble. Speak soon. -B”


	5. Shadows in the Rain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thadeus is on a mission.  
> One month prior to the main events of Let Me In.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys. I know it's not Wednesday but this isn't so much of a normal chapter as it is one that's about building context. It's really short too and I'd feel bad not leaving something more substantial for the weekly update. Anyway, I hope you enjoy :)

Thadeus Harlan had a vendetta. Although the title of Thief-Taker General came with some very pleasant perks, it also wasn’t without its problems. Problems primarily that began with ‘M’ and ended with ‘aster Thief’. It had been a while since he had instated the Black Tax, and admittedly it had been largely successful: it had succeeded not only in boosting his image in The Eternal City by making him appear hard on criminals and extortionists in the eyes of the public, but had also proved profitable in lining his own pockets and those of his friends. However, the Master Thief had so far evaded this Black Tax. It wasn’t so much a matter of money: Thadeus was richer than he had ever hoped in his wildest dreams; but his concern was more… it was the principle of the matter. It showed disrespect to what should have been the second-most respected figure in the whole City, after Baron Northcrest of course. Thieves, in Thadeus’ world, all complied with his rulings, accepted his deal of protection for tax; it was just how things worked. The only solution, in his mind, to a non-compliant and unapproved criminal would be death. A hanging and public humiliation (or at the very least, the loss of his hands and tongue along with life imprisonment) would be best, he thought, it would demonstrate both his authority to the people, and it would strike fear into the heart of other criminals, preventing further definiance. However, the Master Thief’s death would be enough for Thadeus at this point, he had spent long months and resources chasing the thief and was prepared to give up the public statement just to have the burden taken off his shoulders.

This was why he had contacted Anton Sokolov in Dunwall, on the Isle of Gristol many miles north of The City, across a huge sea, past the Isle of Serkonos. Thadeus had heard much of Sokolov’s involvement in the coup towards the end of the rat plague, viewed many of his inspired paintings, even purchased a couple himself at great expense, and wanted to know more of the famous Terror of Dunwall who had carried the new empress Emily Kaldwin to the throne. It wasn’t exactly common knowledge that Anton had been involved in the coup, but the Baron and Thadeus had paid significant amounts of money to a passing merchant to find out more about the events in Dunwall. The merchant had returned several months later with a Sokolov painting depicting the new empress flanked by the man in the mask and not much else, so Thadeus had decided on contacting Sokolov directly. This hadn’t been an easy feat. The man was a complete shut-in.

After some thought and discussion with the Baron, Thadeus had decided that the best way to bait Sokolov into contacting him would be to spread misinformation in Dunwall about the existence of a rat plague in The City, imported via textiles ships sailing from Gristol. An inventor of expensive remedies would not pass up an opportunity to make more money, and Sokolov had contacted him within the week. 

Not wanting to delay, Thadeus had sent a messenger pigeon back to Sokolov requesting a meeting discussing the manufacture of Sokolov Elixir for The City, and then taken a ship to Gristol, leaving his second-in-command in charge, enduring three days of gruelling maritime travel to meet the famous inventor-painter in his huge mansion.

Even Thadeus knew as soon as he saw the dwelling that he would never be able to afford anything like this, not even if the Baron squeezed every citizen of their last penny and then gave all of those riches on top of his own fortune directly to Thadeus. He was in awe of the building. It was like a magnificent, great glass greenhouse. He had to take control of himself walking down the stairs to prevent embarrassment as he headed towards the meeting room Sokolov had prepared for him, flanked by four guards - two in front and two behind - just to stop himself from tripping over his own feet. Sokolov was clearly a man to be friends with, he obviously had a lot of power and influence in Dunwall, which could be useful at some point. 

Coming to the bottom of the stairs, he entered the meeting room and was greeted by Sokolov himself: a carafe of expensive-looking brandy and two crystal vessels sitting on the glass and mahogany table. He had shaken his hand, noting the unexpectedly poorly-kept facial hair and reddened eyes, before sitting down at the opposite end of the table and drawing the chair underneath him. The guards took their posts in each corner of the room and Sokolov stared at Thadeus, unsmiling.

“Well?”

Thadeus was not intimidated by this man, “Do we have to…?” he beckoned at the guards and leaned forward dramatically, “This is private business.”

Sokolov shook his head, “No guards, no business. Go on.”

Thadeus sat back, frustrated but resigned. He hadn’t travelled three days to be refused a meeting. “I may as well come clean. We don’t have the rat plague in The City, but I need to talk to you about your involvement with Emily Kaldwin’s rise to the throne.”

Sokolov turned white, and then red. He waved his hands at the guards, who had begun looking at each other suspiciously, “You are relieved.” The command sounded choked.

The guards slowly turned and walked out of the room with furtive glances at each other and Thadeus. He dealt with the embarrassing situation by staring at a spot on the wall just above Sokolov’s head, lips drawn.

“I doubt you’re here to assassinate me,” the elderly man said, “You wouldn’t be getting out of here alive. So what is it that you want?” He stood up and poured two glasses of brandy, setting one in front of Thadeus and downing his own expertly, not even reacting to the taste. 

Thadeus mulled his words over in his head for a second before speaking. “I viewed your painting of Empress Kaldwin and the masked felon. I’ve heard stories of that very mask. I want to know more about him.”

Sokolov narrowed his eyes, “That painting was stolen from my private studio not one month ago. It wasn’t intended for public consumption. How did you get it?”

Thadeus felt himself go red, “I was unaware that it was stolen. I purchased it from a passing trader.” He doubted the lie was convincing, and Sokolov’s expression didn’t change, “I thought it was… striking.”

“A likely story,” Sokolov said, finally looking down at his nails, aloof, “I’m not pleased that you’ve wasted my precious time on nonsense about my stolen paintings. You’re lucky I’m not going to call the guards. If you want to know more about that man it’s going to cost you.”

Again with the money. Thadeus hesitated before reluctantly dropping a bag of gold into the man’s hands, “I have a problem of my own. I’ve heard he’s an assassin. I have a job for this man if he’s up for the task.”

“I’m not his goddamn pimp,” Sokolov said sharply, “I’ll pass your details on to him and nothing more. Give me the name of the place that you’re staying at, and he can contact you himself. I’m doing you a huge favour in my opinion.”

Thadeus leant back into his chair, annoyed. He wasn’t sure how long it was going to be before this mystery man got back to him, and he had duties to be attending to back in the city. He trusted nobody more than himself to do his job thoroughly. Nevertheless, he promised himself three days in Dunwall before returning to The City. “The Gillygate Guest House. I’m here for three more days. Three days only.”

Sokolov didn’t react particularly well to this attempt at authority. “I’ll tell him. Now get out of my house or I’ll call the guards.”

Thadeus had left not particularly satisfied, but retaining some hope in his mind. Maybe this battle wasn’t yet over.

Thadeus had only stayed in the guest house for one night when a raven arrived at his window and tapped its beak, cawing loudly, demanding to be let in. Thadeus got to his feet immediately and opened the window, letting the raven hop inside the boundary before it turned around and promptly shat on his boot.

“For fuck’s sake-” The Thief-Taker General said angrily, briskly detaching the note from its leg and shoo-ing it back out the window, resisting the urge to grab it and wring the bird’s neck and wipe the top of his boot with its pretty black feathers. Slamming the window shut, he sat himself down at the table and read the note. There was no other person this could be from, aside from Baron Northcrest.

_Tower District. Tonight. Eleventh chime of the clock._

Yep. This was from the masked felon. He thanked Sokolov internally. The man had been brusque but to his credit, he got the job done. It was late afternoon judging by the light and the sun which was about to dip below the horizon. He left his room and asked for directions down in the reception area, before setting off for his destination. He knew that if he got there early, then he could stop in at a pub for food. He gripped the wrist-mounted crossbow in his deep pocket. Just in case.

He did not, in the end, have time to find a pub. After getting slightly lost in the drab, winding streets of Dunwall multiple times, he had eventually found his way to the Tower District. Thadeus was unsure of where he was expected to wait, so he wandered around aimlessly, finding himself in a back alley when the clock struck eleven. 

It had happened so suddenly that Thadeus didn’t even have time to flinch. A large figure flashed in front of him in less than a fraction of a second and stood there, looking down on him, unspeaking. He was huge, towering almost a foot above Thadeus, broad-chested, wearing a large blue trench coat with gold piping, and that mask, that terrifying, deathly skull mask clinging to his face, denying any recognition of the man underneath. The man grasped the handle of a folding sword at his belt, before pointedly looking down at Thadeus’ boot. The one which had bird shit on. He could hear gears whirring in the mask and hoped it wasn’t fitted with a magnification lens.

Thadeus didn’t expect this man to talk, or even communicate, but of all things, it would be that. He ignored the look. “I have a job for you.”

The man didn't even move. He just stared back up at him. Thadeus thought he was staring at him, anyway. It was hard to tell. He handed the man the note he had prepared, one of the flyers from The City, asking for information on the Master Thief’s whereabouts. The man took a long look at the poster, before stashing it back in his pocket and holding out his right hand.

Thadeus scrambled for the payment, another bag of gold. This was swiftly becoming a very expensive mission. As soon as he had dropped the gold into the assassin’s hand, the man disappeared again, folding into the air, leaving the Thief-Taker General standing alone in the street as it began to rain.


	6. Infections and Chapels

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Garrett isn't feeling well. Corvo deals with his feelings.

Garrett, at this point, was feeling very unwell. The wound that had been inflicted on his upper thigh by the rusty nail had been progressively getting worse over the past few days, and he had been feeling generally unwell and feverish. With every step he took, streaks of pain shot up and down his leg, it had got to the point where it was getting harder and harder to ignore. He had been avoiding looking at or addressing the injury as he wasn’t in any sort of position to get himself to a physician (with all the wanted posters around The City? He thought not, not to mention how uncomfortable he felt exposing his vulnerabilities to strangers), nor did he know how to treat it himself with the limited resources he had. He stumbled into a quiet side-street, checking that nobody else was there, sticking close to the shadows, sweating profusely. He holed himself up behind a flapping piece of burlap and gingerly peeled back the still-broken trouser leg from the damaged area. He hissed in pain as his fingers brushed the injury, and took a minute to steady himself, waiting for the waves of nausea to pass. When they had gone, he steeled himself and tried again. It took a few attempts but eventually he was able to see the full extent of the injury.

The wound itself wasn’t bloody like he had expected it to be. Instead it was weeping yellowish-white, filled with some kind of disgusting pus, the surrounding skin wasn’t so much pale as it was a dark purple, the flesh puffy and tender, the smell horrendous, like it was… rotting? An incredible amount of heat was radiating from the wound, so Garrett decided not to repair his gear immediately, opting to leave the leather flapping in the wind. He felt too unwell to really care.

He needed to get going. If there was any chance that this book might be the one the client had asked for then he knew he might cry in relief. He just needed to get back to the Siren’s Rest, consult Basso, and maybe have a strong drink to numb the pain. He knew he would need several of those before he even thought about treating the infection. He had had infections before but only one that had progressed this far - he had spent a night with a small fire, a poker, a clean-looking knife, a leather strap and at least three flaskfulls of strong whiskey, followed by a lot of sleeping and gritting of teeth. A better alternative would have been leeches but Garrett didn’t know how to steal those without accidentally killing them. And the little bastards creeped him out no end.

Garrett slowly propped himself up against the wall and started creeping his way back to the South Quarter. He knew it would be slow going but he felt he didn’t really have much of a choice. He hoped that any guards he happened to come across would be particularly unobservant because there was no way that he was going to get onto the city balconies safely in this state. 

One more step.

One more step.

One more step.

He crept forward, trying to ignore the screaming pain in his thigh. Every once in a while it would get too much and he would have to bite down on the back of his hand to stop himself from screaming and alerting nearby guards. At one point the pain really did get too much for him and he lopsidedly stumbled into a dark corner to cower and vomit, for a moment, he thought that was it, he wouldn’t be able to go any further and a guard would find him here and hand him in - his career and quite possibly his life would be over. Only that thought drove him on. He needed something to calm the pain. There were plenty of doctors in the area just as there were plenty of rich people, all he had to do was find one. At this point anyhow, he had arrived at the Siren’s Rest. He crept around the edge of the dock as per usual, and slipping in through the front door, the familiar figure of Basso sat in his usual chair.

Garrett’s first priority wasn’t going to see Basso. He went straight to the bar and ordered a shot of whiskey, and downed it where he stood, panting and holding himself up on the counter. The barman gave him a look and Garrett shot a moody frown back, as if to say _it’s not what it looks like_ and then ordered another. The barman poured him his second glass, staring at him disapprovingly, and went back to cleaning the bar.

Garrett turned back around and limped towards Basso, who gave him the same look the bartender had. He sat down opposite the portly man and downed his second glass, shuddering as it burnt its way down his throat.

“Not like you to be drinkin’ out in the open,” Basso said, eyeing his friend up and down, “Or drinkin’ at all.”

Garrett wasn’t sure he wanted Basso to know what had happened. It was just humiliating, especially for a thief who was supposed to be good with his feet, so he made do with a slow shake of his head and a protracted sigh. It was true, Garrett didn’t like to drink, especially outside of his own tower. He occasionally had a glass of spirit if he couldn’t get to sleep or if he was in pain, but apart from this purely functional use, he abstained. On top of that, drunk Garrett meant careless Garrett, which in turn meant that his job would be compromised, or he’d say something a little too loudly and attract attention, or lose his footing and endanger himself. Far too risky for his liking.

The whiskey was just enough to take the edge off the pain.

“I found this,” Garrett said as smoothly as he could muster, producing the book from his bag, “Looks an awful lot like the one you described.”

Basso’s eyes widened. He took the book from Garrett, holding it gingerly in his hands, turning it over onto its back, then onto its front, and then turned it once more. When he opened it, Garrett could see a lot of writing, small font, no images. Basso closed it again, the soft thud satisfying among the bustle of the pub.

“You finish the job already?”

Garrett wasn’t sure how to answer, “Found it in the library. I was doing some research and came across it, but didn’t expect it to be there, ‘specially since I’d already seen one at the chapel you talked about.”

Basso leant on his arm, tapping his finger on the book’s cover. He had dealt with fakes before but something about this felt off. It felt like a test, or a trap, or something equally as heinous. “There’s no way the client can’t tell the difference.”

Garrett could respect Basso’s scepticism, but if there was a chance he could get away with it, he would take it, “I don’t know… Who’s to say they’ve actually seen the book before? Could have heard of it through the grapevine and taken a liking.”

Basso read the first couple of lines of the book, reading aloud to Garrett, his voice hushed, “The art of raising the dead is a subject that has been studied by dedicated scholars for time immemorial… yada yada yada… the closest we have ever been to bringing a new meaning to life for society… yeah,” he closed the book, “This guy heard about a book on necromancy, learnt what the cover looked like, and asked for it that way. Better not to tell someone that you have an active interest in bringin’ old corpses back to life, eh?” Basso coughed and laughed, “Cheeky shit don’t think I can read.”

Garrett thought it was odd that anyone would admit that they wanted to raise the dead. “This must be the only one of its kind right?”

“Who knows? I’ve never heard of it before,” Basso replied, skimming through the pages, “This is some fucked-up shit though. Heard of things like this but didn’t realise it was, eh… a thing. Can see why they’d want to go through us to get it though.”

There was no way this was a fake. Nobody made a fake book with such overtly illegal content; something like this would get them hung, drawn and quartered. It wasn’t difficult to commit a hangable offence in The City but a book on necromancy fell firmly within those limits. Garrett took the book out of Basso’s hands, the gems on the front glittering in the soft orange light of the pub, and slid it surreptitiously back into his bag. It would be equally as bad if anyone caught him either holding this book, or discussing it with Basso, who nodded his approval. Garrett considered dropping the book off back at the clocktower, but upon shifting in his seat, aggravating his injury, swiftly decided against it. He needed to get the job done as soon as possible.

“Keep it safe,” Basso said, pointing at the bag, “I’ll kill ya if the General catches ya. I can’t lose my best thief to someone like him. If anyone’s gonna kill you it’ll be me.” Although his joke had clearly been lighthearted, there was more than an edge of concern in his voice. 

“Thanks for the support Basso,” Garrett shot back sarcastically, “Always knew I could count on you.” 

Basso simply laughed and reached over to slap Garrett on the back before he went back to feeding Jenivere scraps of meat, and Garrett walked back over to the bar, who was refused service by the bartender, and then slunk dejectedly out of the pub and onto the streets. He was glad that he had managed to hide the violent shaking of his own leg and the feverish shivers from his fence.

Still, he wanted to make sure that this book wasn't actually the only one. He had seen the other with his own eyes, he needed to know what was inside it. Were they perhaps two editions of the same book, or was the other a more recent research into the art of necromancy? So many questions paced through Garrett’s mind as he stumbled his way down back alleys and through shady corners. 

Whatever his next actions, he needed to find something for his leg. Surely a physician would have pain relief enough to allow him to bear weight on his bad leg, and stores to steal it from. Bandages were an afterthought but they would be useful too. It took him a while, but he managed to find one, a small building tucked away in the corner of South Quarter well-known to any thief, let alone Garrett, and with it being dark out it was unoccupied, doors barred, shutters drawn and bolted, but Garrett knew there was a window out the back that was usually unlocked. This poor fool never learnt, even after having been cleared out multiple times.

Garrett snuck round the back of the building and tried the window, pawing quietly but firmly at the bottom of the lower sash. It slid open readily and Garrett would have laughed if he hadn’t been too busy grimacing, if the situation weren't so unpleasant. He crawled with significant difficulty through the waist-height entry point and fell in through the other side. Unfortunately, the doctor had left several medical instruments and lab bottles there, and Garrett could only watch as they flew off the table and shattered onto the floor.

“Shit,” Garrett gasped quietly, trying to keep himself from making any more noise or disturbing any more instruments. Hopefully, nobody had heard that, but he was going to get his pain relief regardless, even if the entire watch and the Thief-Taker General and his mother burst in right now, he would still get his hands on that bottle.

It took moments for him to find it: a small clear dropper bottle with a red label and red cap. Perfect. He syringed some of it, only a very small amount, into the dropper and touched it to his tongue. The taste made his stomach roll but it after the initial nausea it made his nerves tingle and a warmth seep from his throat down into his stomach and then outwards to the extremities, the pain all but reduced to a dull thump thump thump. Undoubtedly this medication was not to be used to excess, would probably be lethal if it was, and even drops more than what he had taken would easily incapacitate him for several hours. Better to be safe than sorry. He stowed the drug in one of his pouches.

He had known somewhere in the back of his mind that someone had noticed that he had broken into the surgery again, but this was made reality as loud footsteps thudded down the hall and tendrils of light reached out from underneath the door on the opposite side of the room. The frantic sounds of a key scraping against the lock several times before success sounded clearly, giving Garrett adequate warning to get the hell out of dodge. He made for the window again, managing to catch his other thigh on an unsheathed scalpel. Some doctor.

Garrett cleared the window, just as the door at the other side of the room flew open, revealing a very short, angry man in sleepwear, gripping a chamberstick in his hand shaking noticeably and yelling at the thief. He would just have to deal with this loss. Garrett, with a newfound energy stemming from his newly painless leg, shinned up a drainpipe and removed himself from the vicinity as the watch poured in from all directions. Concealed in the shadows, he was now free to leave.

\----------------------

Corvo had been sat with his head in his hands for some time now. The thieves of Stonemarket no longer interested him, nor did the crows hiding in the rafters disturb him like they had before. He stared at the single candle flickering on Garrett’s table, thinking. He knew there was no way he would be able to complete this job. He wasn’t fond of Garrett by any means but he hadn’t seriously wronged Corvo in any way - he was a man who was trying to get by and do his job.

The commotion of the past week and the trauma of the night before arriving at the clocktower, which he was still searching his brain for information about, meant that he had forgotten the details of the job, forgotten the face of the man who had paid him for it, and the flyer he had passed to Corvo. Pulling the note out of his pocket and having his memory refreshed on just why he was there was destabilising, to put it lightly. He still felt slightly nauseous from the shock. Whatever had happened to him the night before arriving at the clocktower must have been serious to cause some level of amnesia. Not good, not good at all. He shook his head.

Corvo could understand how Garrett felt about life. Garrett didn’t have many people either to care about, or to care about him, as far as Corvo could tell. He wasn’t sure whether Garrett preferred it that way or not, but either way, here he was, living in the clock tower, spending his evenings talking to the birds or simply working. Corvo was glad that he had Emily at least, had had Jessamine at some point in time, the respect of his community, knew what it was like to be loved before having it all taken away from him. Something felt wrong about taking the thief’s life, like it had felt wrong to take the lives of the Pendletons or Lady Boyle, but worse as Garrett hadn’t wronged him. God forbid, he was almost becoming attached. In a strange, love-hate way. Stockholm syndrome. He laughed without humour.

The best way of dealing with this, Corvo concluded, was fleeing the city. The man who had asked for the hit on Garrett clearly wasn’t above hiring other assassins to hunt for either his target, or even worse, Corvo, so the faster he could get out of the city unnoticed, he decided, the better. Whoever it was that came next was free to make a try on Garrett's life, Corvo didn’t want anything to do with it.

He stood up, stretching his legs, looking for his belongings. He packed them into a small bag, and found a spare cowl that Garrett appeared to have lying around. He fitted it over his head, and without any further thought, left through the window. 

The mask, he decided, could be left behind. Best to say goodbye to that portion of his life.

The dagger laid still underneath the cabinet, forgotten.

\----------------------

The mixture of the medication, the throbbing feeling in his leg and the nausea in Garrett’s stomach was beginning to make him feel delirious. He stumbled behind one house and then another, attempting to jump from one rooftop to another but failing more than once. He crashed from a gutter and onto the floor where he had to lie for a moment to regain his breath, staring up into the sky, wondering where things had gone so wrong. He panted, trying to regain his balance but fell over once more, hitting the cold dirt face-first, hand crumpled underneath his cheek uselessly. A Garrett of sounder mind would have called off the job a long time ago, but he felt the need to finish this contract, to solve the mystery, to get his payout. He couldn’t believe he was doing this: his brain was so addled he could barely think, let alone walk straight. If Basso had known, Garrett wasn’t sure where he would be right now. Definitely not here. The fence was too soft for his own good.

He picked himself up once more, this time holding onto the wall of a nearby house. He had arrived in the village he’d found himself in much earlier. It had been so long by now that the earliest rays of morning light were creeping over the hills, illuminating the face of the old chapel that sat at the top of the hill. Oddly enough, the grounds surrounded by the trees stayed dark, cold and silent. Garrett didn’t notice the old man he had paid for information staring at him from his window on the other side of the dirt road. 

Creeping up to the old chapel from an angle, he stuck to the shadows and took cover underneath the trees. Patience wearing thin, he grabbed a rope arrow and aimed it at the wooden beam sticking out from underneath the upper window, loosed his hearing a thick splintering crunch from above, and slowly, painstakingly, clambered up it, sliding back down two arm lengths for every three climbed up. The painkiller was wearing off to a noticeable degree, but he pushed through it and steadily managed to climb to the top, gripping the beam and hauling himself onto it, clinging on as if his life depended on it. One slip and he would be dead. Without stopping to catch his breath, he crawled in through the small window into the chapel and headed straight towards the room with the book. It was eerily quiet.

Garrett was far into the belly of the building before it registered in his mind that there weren’t any guards. He crept through vents and disabled traps and stuck to shadows, but nothing remained of the guards that had been there earlier in the evening, not the torches that had been lit, not the bottles of beer, nor the equipment that had been leant against wardrobes and doors and windows. It was silent. Garrett didn’t question it, aiming to grab the book and get out.

After some time, he entered the large room with the book placed in the centre on a pedestal. He pulled the other one out and looked at it - they looked almost exactly the same, no noticeable differences. Pausing for a moment, waiting for his heart to stop thumping, he listened out for movement, steps, voices, anything that would indicate the presence of other people. He watched the floor intently, waiting for any semblance of light or a torch carried by a rogue guard. Nothing.

Satisfied that the coast was clear, he dropped down onto the floor for the first time since he was ambushed. His knees gave out underneath him and he rolled onto his side, reaching out immediately, hoping to steady himself. It took a minute of him trying to roll himself into an upright position before he was able to coordinate himself enough to get back on his feet, crouched legs shaking.

He trod lightly, pausing in between each step, his breath barely leaving his lips, listening still for signs of life. The tension was painful. He just needed to grab the book and be gone.

One step on flagged stone.

One more step as he felt the cold seep up through the hole in his boot.

His hands closed around the book and a shot of adrenaline sent cold waves down his limbs and into the pit of his stomach, making him freeze for a second in an attempt not to retch. All seemed well. It was still silent. He crammed the book into his bag, which was getting very full and heavy by now and pulled out the other one he had found, observing it momentarily in the dim light, inspecting it. He turned on his heel, and standing in the doorway was a cloaked and masked figure, their arm outstretched.

“Give me the book.”

Garrett didn’t really think, handing over the book he had found in the library. His heart went back to hammering away, the mask stirring some kind of primal terror in his guts. This must be the client, the same man who had looked at him in the library. Maybe he had been seen after all. This threw up some questions.

The masked figure took one look at the cover of the book and shook his head. “Master thief, I thought you were more intelligent than this.”

Garrett felt so delirious at this point that he was barely registering what the figure was saying. The world was spinning on its axis, threatening to throw him on his side, and he felt cold air swirl around him and short, sharp popping noises as several different figures appeared around him suddenly from nowhere.

Ambushed again.

How stupid of him. 

Garrett didn’t even let himself time to think before launching himself at the wall best he could, lurching drunkenly to the side as the room tipped again and the men advanced, surrounding him. He knew it was pointless but he raised his arms to shelter his head regardless, trying to protect himself from the oncoming bludgeon blow. Ironic, he thought. The man still got a good hit in and pain bloomed on his left shoulder. 

Garrett wasn’t trained in fighting. He knew that ‘several’ men would easily overpower him, so he did what he knew best - tried to escape. He pushed the nearest man off his centrepoint the best he could. The others pushed back, throwing him against the wall and forcing him to the floor, to which he countered by raising his good leg and forcing a strong strike into the knee of one of the men, feeling a satisfying _snap_ underneath his foot. He knew that now would be the time to kill if anything but it was impractical to draw his bow in such close quarters, and he had done away with carrying knives years ago. He saw a way out.

Bludgeon. Crunch. Pain.

The fray was only one man thick in the direction of the vent. That man was lunging for Garrett. Garrett drew his fist back and punched the attacker square in the nose. Blood squirted out and a loud crunch sounded among the hubbub, and as another man approached from the side, landing a strong blow with a cosh to his hip. Garrett jammed his index and middle finger in the general direction of the man’s eyes. That earnt him a scream. He kicked the bodies out of the way as fast as he reasonably could and staggered towards the vent, making a leap-

Just as thought he was free, someone grabbed his ankle and dragged him back downwards into the crowd and onto his back. He had clearly landed on one of the other men on his way down because he felt someone squirm out of his way and plant a foot on his chest, and two other feet pinned down his arms, Before Garrett could do anything about getting back up, he saw a bludgeon coming straight for his head.

He floated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! I've got another context chapter that I'm planning on releasing at the weekend (again, it's a lot smaller than the other chapters) so keep an eye out for that.  
> Hoping you're all having a great week :)


	7. Trial By Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Whalers have a discussion.

The fire in the kitchen was burning strong and bright, at least fifteen Whalers huddled around it, some cradling the injuries they had sustained while the thief had fought them in the chapel, some just staring at the crackling flames, watching their colleagues thumb through the gear they had retrieved after the thief had lost consciousness. He had been well-stocked. Clearly he stole a lot more gold than he spent, but what he had spent it on were custom leathers and harnesses, a sophisticated compound bow complete with quiver, blown-glass fire and water arrows. It was all going into the fire, or at least all the bits the Whalers couldn’t sell were. He wasn’t going to be needing it any more.

First they inspected the leather armour and harness. Bloody and ripped in the thigh area. Too small to be realistically used by any other man in the Eternal City. Useless. That went into the fire. The leather slowly curled up as the edges charred and the stitches split as soon as they hit the heat. The rope from the harness went up in an instant, the metal rings and buckles turning black with soot as they glinted prettily nestled in the flames. They could be retrieved later, melted down and refashioned into other, more useful things. Arrowheads, steel daggers, fake currency. Boots, gloves, bracers: it all went in. The scarf had disintegrated before it even hit the fire, the ashen remains floating up the flue.

Next was the weapon, a sophisticated-looking piece of equipment that sprung open with a surprisingly quiet _click_ when a button on the side was pressed, revealing a black compound bow with pulleys, gears, mechanisms so it could shut again for easy storage and transportation. The grip was exceedingly comfortable and the string taut and masterfully tuned. This seemed like it would fetch a hefty price in some other part of the world, hundreds, possibly thousands of gold, and the same went for the custom arrows and quiver. If this thief was worth his salt, nobody else in the City would have seen it, so maybe it was even worth the risk to try selling it there. The bow and quiver were wrapped up delicately in a long, thick strip of cotton, rough hands taking the most care with the expensive equipment. The pulleys and mechanisms creaked as the bow was turned over and over and placed on a kitchen bench to the side, out of harm’s way. It wouldn’t be a good idea to let this piece of art go up in flames.

And then were the pouches that they had detached from the thief’s armour before kindling the fire. Each one was emptied, one by one, and the contents inspected. Gold, jewelery, silver spoons and syringes, knives and anything that would attract the attention of a thief, all pickpocketed or stolen from next to beds, in safes, hidden in dark corners. The riches were dumped in a pile next to the bow and quiver package, all to be sold at a profit. The last pouch to be opened revealed a small vial of a colourless liquid complete with a dropper. The Whalers looked at each other, unsure of what exactly this drug was. It looked expensive. This was probably the most lucrative job that the Whalers had ever undertaken. It was easily enough to set them up for life. It was no wonder that the half-conscious master thief had grasped at the gear and whimpered when they took it all off him. The pouches went in the fire too, the eyelets falling out and the leather singing and crisping, slowly melting into the rest of the outfit as the Whalers stoked the fire and added fuel generously.

All that was left was the bag. It was odd that a thief with so many pouches carried a bag around with him, but the Whalers opened it regardless, pulling out the contents one by one. The book that Orion had demanded, and its copy. Not knowing what was contained in the copy version, one Whaler opened it and read the first few lines. 

“Necromancy.”

The word hung cold in the air, despite the hot fire roaring next to the group.

“Well at least it’ll be a good excuse.”

The two books were piled up on the other side of the fireplace, the gems glistening in the soft light. There was one more book, cover grey and dull compared to the richer colours of the two others. Once again, the assassin flipped it open, revealing a diagram of the Outsider’s mark. There were puzzled grunts among the group. Why would this thief want to know about the Outsider? The book was put aside for further study, to be brought up with Orion the next time they saw him. 

The last thing in the bag was withdrawn to numerous gasps in the group. Quite possibly the last thing they wanted to see here in The City. The mask of Corvo Attano, the Royal Protector, the Masked Felon. The man who had murdered Daud and splintered the Whalers off into their individual factions and caused the neverending infighting, all the deaths. Attano had clearly been in The City very recently, if not still there, patrolling the streets, looking for them. No doubt angry and jumpy due to the loss of his mask too.These were dangerous waters. The Whalers looked at each other apprehensively, before exploding into loud debates.

“We need to tell Orion.”

“No way, if he knows then the whole City will know, and that’ll be the end of us.”

“Can we just leave? Just go back to Gristol?”

“Don’t be such a pussy.”

One Whaler was holding the mask up to the light, studying it from every angle. The gold glinted in the fire light and the lenses shimmered. “Can we use it against him?”

The others looked at him, muttering. Maybe that was possible. Maybe they could use it to draw a confession of practicing necromancy out of the thief and report it to Orion. He would know what to do. Either way, he wasn’t getting out of that cellar alive. They’d poison him if they had to. Run him through with a sword. Wrap a piece of wire round his neck and garotte him. The Whalers sat in silence for a long time, the smell of singed leather pungent in the air, before the mask was wrapped up in another long strip of cotton and placed next to the bow and quiver. The bag, like the rest of the equipment, went in the fire, the door closed and one final batch of dry wood was added, the whooshing of the fire intensifying as the heat rose. By the next morning, there would be no traces remaining of the thief, or his possessions.

\----------------------

It was not highly uncommon for a Whaler to never learn the identities of his fellow assassins. It was even less likely after the disappearance of Daud many months ago, as the Whalers splintered into factions and began fighting, brother against former brother, father against son, for power and control in Dunwall. The Whalers in the Eternal City had decided soon after the ascension of Empress Emily Kaldwin that it was probably dangerous to stay in Dunwall, and after gathering some of their most trusted fellow assassins (or as trusted as possible among assassins) had crossed the southern sea with the help of some nobleman named Aldous and worked for him instead, opting to escape from the vicious entanglements between Whaler factions, former Whalers, the city watch. Aldous, or Orion as he preferred, was warmer and more human than Daud had ever been, but a lot less level-headed, prone to manic outbursts, short-tempered, sometimes with unfortunate consequences. He professed to be the saviour of the people, but judging by his long rants to passing subordinates, he was a lot more interested in exacting revenge on his half-brother. Who this half-brother was, the Whalers weren’t sure. As long as they were still getting paid, they didn’t really care. They weren’t generally interested in the motivations of their masters, prioritising coin and protection over ethical concerns.

And if Orion defaulted, then the Whalers had blades and hands to relieve him of the gold in his pockets and the breath in his lungs.

It hadn’t been long since the small band of Whalers had begun working for Orion when he had started talking about an ancient energy named the Primal. This energy was supposedly being researched by Orion’s half-brother to “bring about a golden age” and abolish the old gods. Orion, naturally, took great offence when he heard of his brother’s pursuits. 

And some stupid bastard had told him about the existence of runes and bone carvings legendary in Dunwall for their mystical powers; he had latched onto it like a limpet.

“They could interact with the Primal” one of the Whalers overheard Orion muttering excitedly one evening, “I could undermine everything that terrible man stands for.”

And so began three long months of borderline-obsessive searching, researching, threatening people, travelling to and from Gristol looking for runes. All fruitless. It was such a pointless task. The whole thing was just utterly exhausting.

Orion had hurried back from his work one evening at the hospice in Stonemarket buzzing with excitement and called a meeting.

“I heard of a book.” Orion began after sitting all the Whalers down and offering brandy to those few who ever took their gas masks off, “That contains fragments of whale-bone runes.”

The collective eye-rolls of all the Whalers in the room was practically audible. The Whalers, of any single group of people, were by far the most likely to know of the existence of runes, and the likelihood of rune existence in this part of the world? Zero. It was insane. So what Orion had said next shocked them into sitting up and taking note.

“There’s an Outsider shrine at the edges of the City. You know of the Outsider, don’t you?”

Of course. There was no way they didn’t, Daud had talked of him many times. The worship of the Outsider was banned outright in Dunwall but here in The Eternal City, it was probably still allowed, even though they had their own gods here. Orion seemed like a religious man, so it was strange to see him getting excited about foreign deities. None of them had simply never considered that the people living in the Eternal City might also worship him.

“And you want us to get that book?” Another Whaler asked, raising his hand tentatively.

Orion had simply nodded in response. 

It was at least another month before the Whalers were able to find a chance to get their hands on those runes. Even then, they had to go through a proxy to get it, after contacting a fence in the city by the name of Basso. He had promised the Whalers, fear in his eyes as five of them stood demandingly in front of him, that he would get the book to them, arrange a dead drop and that would be the end of it. They had promised many things, none of which they actually planned on going through with. But still Basso had promised, and the Whalers had the muscle to get what they wanted. Orion was mainly shielded from the dirty work, too busy building up his public image, so when they had the master thief bring the book to him, he hadn’t known. Until the Whalers had told him, of course.

Orion predictably wasn’t pleased at all about the book on necromancy when the Whalers had brought it to him several hours after burning the rest of the thief’s gear. He had taken the book in his hands and skimmed the first few pages, his face contorting into various disgusted expressions before he snapped the book closed and placed it carefully back on his desk. “And you got this from…?”

“The thief, yes. The thief we also caught stealing the runes.” The Whaler’s voice didn’t falter, and he stood to attention, the glass lenses in the mask glinting in the morning light.

The Whalers had told Orion of the thief just as one of the inhabitants of the village had alerted them to the his presence. Passed the whole thing off as a mere coincidence, that he was here to steal the book from Orion to deliver it to his half-brother, that he was a plant working on behalf of Elias Northcrest. Orion knew that if Elias got a hold of the rune fragments, life in the City would get a hundred times worse. And Orion had taken the bait. The blinding hatred for his brother and excitement at the runes had eclipsed all other concerns. 

Orion rubbed the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut. He didn’t like having to kill people but necromancy was beyond morally reprehensible. When he had ordered the Whalers to take the thief prisoner, he hadn’t expected much more than to have to warn him never to return to this place, never to speak of what he had found there, and then let him go with the threat of a tip-off to the Thief-Taker General.

But no. This was no ordinary thief. This was something else and it needed to be stamped out before it spread. “Are you able to get a confession?” Orion said after some thought, “We can’t just execute a man without a confession. Someone might notice. We’ll have proof.”

The Whaler nodded without hesitation. “We’ll get it done sir.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Would have updated this sooner but it's been a busy weekend and only just got chance to update (it's my birthday - shoutout to my lovely dad who drew a cockatiel in Corvo's mask for me)


	8. The Cell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Garrett deals with his choices. Corvo flees.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Didn't tag these at the beginning so I'll give warnings here for torture and implied alcoholism.

Garrett couldn’t tell where he was or what he was supposed to be doing. He shivered; his hood, boots, bow, quiver; everything he possessed had disappeared, presumably taken off him. There was a growing anxiety in the pit of his stomach but he couldn’t open his eyes nor get his body to respond, no matter how much he tried to move his arms, no matter how dire the situation felt. There was a pressure on his stomach, the world was swaying again, his head felt stuffy, and it didn’t take him too long to realise he was hanging upside down, carried over someone’s shoulder. 

This was very bad news.

The adrenaline forced his mind into action and he began to kick his legs, albeit feebly against the back of the man carrying him, who noticed this resistance immediately and knelt down, dropping him to the ground, letting him drop onto his back without grace. Garrett kicked his legs back and tried to roll himself onto his feet but he didn’t succeed in anything more than over-pitching and collapsing back to the floor, a sharp burst of breath expelled through gritted teeth. A second man popped into Garrett’s field of vision and knelt on his forearm, preventing him from moving, brandishing a syringe and squeezing the viscous, neon-green contents into the crook of his elbow. It spread, cold, up his arm, down towards his heart, and the man withdrew the syringe again, the feeling unpleasant under his skin. They just looked at him as his angry flailing reduced to nothing but small twitches of his arms and legs, ragged breaths, quiet crying, and picked him up just as his consciousness faded out again.

When Garrett woke up, he wasn’t sure what time it was, nor how long he had been out. The first thing he could feel was crippling pain where the bludgeons had rained blows down on him, as well as a pinching feeling in the crook of his arm. There was a tight sensation around his wrists and legs, indicating to him that he had been bound, possibly to a chair. Just his luck. He attempted to pick his head off his shoulder without much success, flopping uselessly down onto his chest instead. He heard a movement.

Garrett groaned. Everything was stiff. His vision swam back in and he opened his eyes, looking down. He felt groggy, much worse than he had when he had been knocked around the head before. Sleeping drugs, he thought. Must have been out a lot longer than he expected. He tried moving his arms, but the movements came much later and slower than he wanted them to. His head was spinning as he heard the footsteps approach him and a rough hand grabbed him by the chin, fingers digging into his cheeks, forcing Garrett to look at him. He didn’t recognise the man: unsurprising, considering his face was still swimming in and out of focus, barely able to keep his eyes open as it was. He drifted, feeling the fingernails in his cheeks melt away and all pain left him once more, the world momentarily feeling gentler than it was.

It felt like that for less than a second, before a bucket full of icy water came crashing down over his head, making his muscles lock up and freezing the breath in his lungs. Garrett’s eyes snapped open, his fists balled themselves up uncontrollably, heart constricting painfully, his chest vibrating until he was able to take another breath. Garrett realised that he was undressed down to his waist, and his lower leathers had been replaced with hessian shorts, so it felt even colder than he would usually have it. Once the initial shock of the water wore off, his head slowly started swimming again, which he tried his best to ignore. He wasn’t sure what was worse, the physical pain of the situation or the vulnerability he felt. The stuff he had taken to relieve himself of his leg pain had worn off completely by now, and it was more painful than ever.

It was a small room, or more rather, a cell. The air was damp and claustrophobic, meaning, he guessed, that it was underground. The floor was covered in flagged stones, the walls built of grey rock, and on each side of the cell was an iron-bound sconce. There was a heavy wooden door directly in front of him which was propped ajar, letting a draft in, which Garrett felt all the more thanks to the ice water that was now dripping off and pooling beneath him. A metal table with silver wheels sat in front of him, shining dully in the light. He couldn’t see his gear from where he was sitting, assumed it had been searched and was being held in a different room, if he was particularly unlucky. It was all the more work for when he did escape. How could he have allowed this to happen to him?

He had not managed to get a good look at the man who had thrown the water on him in his blind panic as he had disappeared out the door, leaving Garrett alone in the cell. He shivered ever more violently for several minutes, his muscles seizing in protest, watching his breath leave him in puffs. He wouldn’t survive long like this unless he warmed up soon, which seemed unlikely. He fiddled with the bindings behind his back. Rope. He twisted his wrists here and there, feeling a little slack coming loose in the rope, but only enough to relieve some of the rubbing discomfort, and not nearly enough to remove even his slender hands. He retreated into himself, staring into space.

Footsteps on the stone outside the cell roused him from his dream. Two men this time. He lifted his head and the floor creaked open, the air flow causing the torches to flicker and dance. They were wearing heavy leather boots, gloves, hoods, and long masks that were unfamiliar. Some type of rubber, Garrett didn’t recognise it, and one of the men was carrying a wooden box which he opened, pulling out one of the books Garrett had stored in his bag, setting it down on the metal table in front of Garrett. The other book he pulled out as well, dropping the box down on the ground, kicking it off to the side of the room. It skidded across the flagstone floor, loud scrapes as it graced the floor dying down quickly as it came to rest somewhere behind Garrett.

“Where did you find this?” The first man asked Garrett in a heavily muffled voice, cutting to the chase. He opened it to reveal the small writing Garrett had discussed with Basso earlier. 

Garrett, seeing no point in making this more difficult than it had to be, replied in truth, struggling to push the words out of his quivering lips. “Library. Secret room.”

The two men looked at each other, or at least they appeared to, before looking back at him. The second man left the room briskly, boots echoing their way back down the corridor out of earshot, leaving Garrett with the first man. Every movement of his hands made Garrett flinch in fear, feeling way too exposed.

He held up the other book on the table, before opening it. What was inside was not something that Garrett had expected. Instead of words, milky white objects fell from a cavity in the book and clattered onto the table loudly, some bouncing off and onto the floor, humming quietly as they went. “Rune fragments,” he explained, watching Garrett follow the paths of the stones disinterested. They almost seemed to buzz, or hum. Garrett wasn’t sure. “Ever heard of the Primal?”

Garrett didn’t even bother to shake his head. He had barely even been listening, and the man waited for a good few seconds before assuming correctly that Garrett wasn’t going to reply, continuing to talk.

“What were you doing with a book on necromancy?”

Garrett’s stomach dropped. He lifted his head and stared defiantly at the man in the rubber mask. It was unavoidable, he supposed, that they would have found that among the belongings in his bag. It was stupid of him to even keep hold of it, but he had thought it might have been of interest to the clients, thought…

It didn’t matter what he thought. All that mattered was what it looked like on him. He had made a lot of piss-poor decisions within the past few days, likely due to the infection in his leg and the tiredness and the lack of food, but at the time they had made sense. Now even while his thigh still burned and his body shivered, he was as sober as he had been in days, and it had been a mess, and the word was out that he had a book on him concerning necromancy - there was no way this wasn’t getting to the Thief-Taker General. He’d have his head. Not much he could do about it now, except plan an escape. It seemed increasingly unlikely as he felt so weak even now, and as time went on, he would get weaker, he knew that much. The time for an escape was now.

The man had left the room several minutes after asking Garrett about the necromancy book, leaving him alone again. The door hadn’t been bolted shut, there didn’t appear to be any sort of locking mechanism anyway, which was at least one good sign. He wasn’t sure where he was, or even if he was still within The City, but to make a break for it and at least see what was outside was his best chance. He had to start with the restraints. The rope was fairly thick, and his hands being tied up behind his back made them difficult to reach. He twisted his arms, trying to ignore the soreness and quickly-opening welts around his wrists where the bindings sat, pulling slightly. There was some small amount of give in them, which was a good sign, and it was wrapped in a simple band, so there were no obvious tricky knots to contend with. He felt around the bindings where he could, trying not to let the violent shivers prevent him from making a good job of it, looking for the knot, any trailing pieces of rope, any obvious weaknesses. An overhand knot. He would have laughed were the situation not so dire. He thought for a moment, picking at stray strands here and there. He reached around the knot, continuing to feel and tug at it. The spare lengths of rope were longer than he would have liked but he set to work anyway, teasing at the rope with his wrists and fingers, slowly sliding the length of it back through the knot, untying it. That was alarmingly simple. He had been alone in the room now for at least half an hour working at the knot, so once his hands were free, it was less than five minutes before he freed his legs too, and he was good to go. If anything, it was a good sign that his captors weren’t even competent enough to tie a secure knot, so he felt encouraged as he prepared to get off his feet.

Bad idea. It was a mistake getting up as soon as he had. The room tipped violently again, throwing him down into the corner of the room, crashing against the metal table, falling down back onto the still-wet and freezing stone floor. He first heard a crack as he caught his right forearm and felt the bones shift very unpleasantly underneath his skin and a muted thump as his head hit the floor. 

His ears rang and the room twisted and turned underneath him. His entire body now was screaming at the abuse endured by Garrett’s stupidity; his veins felt like poison was pumping around them fresh from the infection in his leg. He let a moan escape his lips as he lay there pathetically, his arm flopping like a fish out of water as he tried half-heartedly to correct himself, whimpering like a kicked dog. Pain overtook him and hijacked his stomach as he vomited what little contents he had in his stomach onto the floor and gasped for breath.

Garrett waited.

Expected the men to come back at any second.

Decided he didn’t care.

He rolled slowly back onto his knees and pushed with his good arm against the floor, righting himself successfully this time. Hugging the broken appendage to his chest, he crept out of the cell not caring if the door creaked, and slunk along the corridor, leaning heavily on the wall, letting the side of his face drag along the cold stone. He was so cold he couldn’t even feel his feet. Whatever rational part of his brain was still switched on forced him to look up, grasping for anything that would give him a better chance of escape. No such passage existed, at least in this part of the building. It was a long, straight, well-lit corridor. A death trap.

As Garrett suspected, it wasn’t long before he heard two sets of boots marching his way, echoing along the corridor menacingly. He dropped to his knees: there wasn’t even any point trying now. He could smell burning from somewhere. The men grabbed him by the arms and he felt himself falling back into oblivion.

He woke to one of the masked men holding the bottle of liquid he’d stolen from the chemist, talking to each other in a garbled language that didn’t make any sense, before one of the turned around towards him. There was a glass eyedropper in the other hand, topped in red rubber, and he inserted the dropper into the bottle, withdrawing a small amount. Too much. Words fell down into the pits of Garrett’s mind and then appeared again, fading in, fading out.

“Expensive stuff this. Don’t want to lose it. Could fetch a nice price.”

There was a scoff and a shuffle of boots. Garrett instinctively locked his jaws together, pursing his lips. There was no way he was going to let this happen. The masked man cocked his head.

“Open your mouth.” The command had a very sharp edge.

Garrett refused to comply, jerking his head away aggressively. He didn’t want this. He needed to be mentally alert for his escape.

No.

The second man delivered a punch to Garrett’s stomach and all the wind forced itself out his mouth. A gloved hand grabbed hold of his face, forcing his jaws apart with one hand, the fingers jammed into his cheeks so that closing his mouth wasn’t an option, and with the other hand, ejected the contents of the dropper into his mouth. Garrett didn’t know how much of the liquid there had been, but it had been more than he’d dared touch before. Maybe 5, 6 drops. 

No!

“They never learn.” The first man said, before exiting the room with his companion after extinguishing the sconces and shutting the door. Garrett felt like his head was going to burst.

No no no no nonononono.

The room was quiet but at the same time, a chorus of several hundred voices screamed up to the sky. Every muscle in his body seemed to relax without the permission of his mind, while the nerves caught fire underneath his skin, reducing him to nothing but the waves of static running up and down his arms, along his legs, across his chest. He vomited bile while lights flashed in front of his eyes manically, and his head fell forwards onto his chest, muscles spasming involuntarily, silent screams balling furiously in his chest. But as soon as it had started, it stopped again, and Garrett was left as nothing more than a hunk of meat, oscillating slowly within an oblivion where monsters crawled from the edges of the room towards his pale, soft, unprotected feet, where Basso and Erin lay dead in front of him with their eyes plucked from their sockets, limbs mangled, where the very worst moments of his life played out again and again in front of his eyes and the best moments were reduced to nothing but ashes. The flagstone floor was still in front of him yes, but the stinking black sludge that seeped out from between the cracks looked up at him with thousands of eyes called his name and sang him songs where the lines repeated themselves again and again and again into forever. 

Garrett heard someone screaming from the edges of the world but he couldn’t locate its origins. He looked around frantically, neon lights blooming out of the darkness and felt a cold hand stroke the side of his head, not menacingly. His heart calmed, his breaths stopped hitching in his lungs. The face of death that had been staring at him for the past several hours turned into a pair of pitch black eyes and then a white-gaunt face, just watching, before dissolving into nothing. Soft footsteps surrounded him, stepping in time with his own heartbeat. Garrett felt the watchful gazes of his only, dare he call them, friends. He felt Jenivere settle on his left shoulder, heard her whisper “Let it go, Garrett,” in Erin’s voice before he slowly loosed his grip and fell back into the void.

Somewhere he heard the door open again and two men, probably the same ones from before, walked into the room and observed him, judging by the silences that fell over the room.

“He looks like shit.”

“That’s what you get. Boss says he’s for the chop tomorrow, hopefully get a confession first. He says the runes might strengthen The Primal, might not. Don’t want to damage the body though. Aldous might have other plans.” The tone was grim, Garrett could tell even that through the rubber mask and the drugged filter in his brain. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been here. The words themselves didn’t even register in his mind.

He felt a shiver run up his spine and over his scalp, underneath his hair. Never before had he wanted to change anything about himself or his appearance but now he wished more than ever that he had long hair, anything that might protect him from the cold. It was drawing the life out of him. 

He didn’t hear the men leave.

\----------------------

With it being so late at night, Corvo knew that he couldn’t just make a beeline for the docks and have a ship take him back to Gristol. He knew that the vessels travelling to and from the Isles were frequently busy and getting a bed on the ship would be incredibly unlikely as a last-minute affair, so he decided to stay at an inn for the night, wait until morning and then ask about places on ships. He had some money to spare, but really it wasn’t much to bribe the captain with. He would find a way to get himself away from this godforsaken place sooner or later.

It didn’t exactly help that Corvo didn’t know his way around the city. He didn’t really remember the past week, maybe if he did, he would be a little less disorientated. Usually he was good with directions, but finding his way through a foreign city with little signposting was tricky. After climbing down from the clocktower, he began to make his way across the various tiled roofs and window ledges, shinning up drainpipes and falling short distances, having the wind knocked out of him after losing his balance more than once. He realised over the course of about three minutes how much respect he had for Garrett, who was able to not only tread these roofs without being caught, but actively use them to his advantage. Corvo, it was no lie, was no stranger to walking around on the tops of the odd building when he had to, but it wasn’t his preferred method of approach; it was slippy, dangerous, and made worse by his stature as most roofs weren’t built to support any person, let alone a fully-grown man of his height and weight, so as a rule he avoided it. It would be a death sentence to fall through someone’s roof, and to the average citizen, the unexpected sound of footsteps above their heads would be unlikely to provoke any action other than to call the watch. 

Corvo scouted, working his way out towards the corners of the city. He had a feeling that the watch here weren’t on his side, and as he travelled outwards, the skies dark and rumbling above him, he noticed there were details here and there in The City that stirred memories. The thoughts sat cold and stodgy in his stomach and he attempted to push them down while hitching his collar and picking up his pace, aiming to get out of there as soon as possible. 

It wasn’t long before he came to an inn at the outskirts of the town, where the (already low) activity of the town centre had slowed to a halt aside from the occasional meandering pigeon or scavenging rat. Even here they were much more leisurely than in Stonemarket, opting to stick to the light of the main streets and paths rather than hiding in the rafters and shadows of nearby buildings. Corvo watched them momentarily, absent-mindedly thumbing the small change in his pocket before traipsing on. The area was relatively free from the watch, contained few houses and even fewer businesses, although it was dirty and muddy - got muddier as the darkened sky began to rain, saturating the dirt and turning it slippery under his feet. Now was the time to be stopping if ever. There was an inn at the end of the road.

For such a small and quiet village, the inn was packed with all types. The bar was crawling with men who had undoubtedly been working not two hours earlier, the noise of the rabble enough that he had to shout to ask for a room for the night at the desk. Corvo’s head was filled with not only the smell of rain and waxed jackets and beer, but also the need to get out, to get to bed and be up before dawn the next morning to fly far away, back to Emily. Although the smell of rain and beer was not something that he disliked (far from it, it felt familiar, homely), something felt off. He wasn’t sure what.

He didn’t really care.

Any “off” feeling could surely be dealt with by the next poor fool who came to this place in his stead.

The room upstairs was satisfactorily insulated from the crowd on the floor below, with worn wooden floors, the boards slick from hundreds of years of use, drab walls, a flickering fire, a small table and a modest single bed dressed in brown coverings and matching cushions. Tasteful.

Jessamine would have hated it here. 

The bittersweet thought floated across his mind unexpectedly. He had worked hard recently to suppress any thoughts he’d had of his late lover as often it made him emotional. Too emotional for his line of work. He hadn’t been coping well with her death, using various crutches to deal with the shock: the Loyalists, Emily, doing bodyguard work, and when the worst nights came around he would seclude himself in a basement, cram himself into a corner where nobody else would be able to find him and fight the walls, fight himself, fight the burning alcohol threatening to rise from his stomach. The further away he could keep himself from those nights, the better, but the thought that he might have been able to do something, anything, about the Empress’s death was overwhelming. Sometimes it felt like he was fighting a losing battle. There had been times when, once Emily had been restored to the throne, he would catch whispered words about how, maybe, The Royal Protector had allowed it or even facilitated it, and at those times he would have to physically remove himself to avoid committing bloody murder right there in the palace halls.

Sometimes, he wasn’t sure if the mark on the hand was the Void itself calling him, commanding new victims. Sometimes it glowed on the particularly bad nights when he was catatonic in a wine cellar or a too-warm-to-be-comfortable boiler room, and the thought of murdering every last fucking person in Gristol became too much. Raze the whole continent to the ground and rebuild something better for Emily and himself. Then it died down: he would drink more.

Corvo stared out the window, looking across at The Eternal City. Now would not be one of those nights. He wouldn’t allow it. He brought a hand to his temple and caught a glimpse of four dark pink half-moon crescent marks nestled in the palm of his hand. 

“Stop it.” He commanded audibly, “Stop it.”

He wasn’t one for talking to himself but sometimes needs must.

He leant over and untied his bootlaces, placed them by the bed, laid on his back staring at the dark rafters. Tried not to re-watch Jessamine’s insides spilt all over the gazebo’s perfect marble floor. Tried to think of how delighted Emily had been to see him again. Tried to think of what a great empress she was going to be. Tried not to think of how his own burning flesh had stank in that dark, cold interrogation chamber and how he had screamed at Campbell and Burrows to stop.

In the times when Emily said disturbing things, Corvo tried his best to be a good father, to teach her that crashing two ships into each other for fun wasn’t what great leaders did to their subjects. He wanted to break the cycle of awfulness he knew the Empire was inevitably prone to falling into in this era, but damn him if there weren’t times that he wished she would actually do that…

Something felt familiar about this place. Familiar and wrong.

Rubbing the palm of his hand, he tensed and relaxed each of his muscles, starting from his face and working all the way down to his feet. It wasn’t much, but it helped some. Not as much as whiskey did though. He listened to the floor below intently, listening to the rousing chorus of some unspecified drinking song. People. Revellers.

What they were revelling at, Corvo wasn’t sure. He felt himself begin to drift, the flickering of the fire by his side and the warm, safe bed welcoming him in. The gold of the candle holder glinted in the soft, warm light. The soft folds of the sheets drew him into a deep sleep, the exhaustion of the last few days finally crashing down on his head. His grasp on the sheets loosened reluctantly. Below him the song went on, and above him the heavens cleared.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much to you guys who are still reading and commenting, I really appreciate it!  
> If any of you want to join a Discord server that I've set up for Thief/Dishonored crossover fans, you can join it [ here!](https://discord.gg/9P7Wkh2) I thought it might be a good idea if anyone wanted to chat in an informal setting about fan theories/fic ideas/share art/play tf2 or whatever.


	9. A Surprise Guest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Corvo has a chat with the Outsider. Garrett wishes he were home. Corvo slaps a bitch.

Corvo woke with a start. 

Had he locked the door? 

There was a draft in the room and he was shivering as the sheets had displaced themselves whilst he had slept. He gathered the sheets tightly around himself protectively. He was vulnerable here, open to attack, not on his guard and it made him anxious. There was going to be no more sleeping that night. He looked around, trying not to make too much noise as to alert anyone who might have snuck into his room, looking for intruders. A man with a pale, gaunt face stood at the foot of his bed illuminated by the dying embers of the fire, simply observing. Corvo jumped, but held his tongue. The figure was familiar. He sighed in relief, dropping his head back down onto the pillow momentarily before raising it once again, angry heat rising in his face.

“Could you at least warn me when you’re about to appear?”

The Outsider simply looked at him, head cocked inquisitively, ignoring the question, “Interesting to see what you use my mark for Corvo. Becoming a hired assassin is not what I expected of you.”

Corvo narrowed his eyes, shifting himself up in bed, “A man asked me to do a job. I said yes. It’s business”

“This is business? Those are your requirements now? A general you’ve never met before who controls an island far to the south of Gristol asks you to murder another man and you don’t even know what his crime was? Did you even ask about your target?”

Corvo hesitated and then shook his head, more guilt creeping up the back of his neck along with the red flush settling hot on his cheeks. Why did he have to ask so many questions? “I don’t need a lecture off you.” His voice was strong but inside he was quaking. There was nothing he could lose by this man but it was so easy to feel intimidated by a god.

“But then… Then you gave it all up didn’t you? Why Corvo? A man you’re sent to murder shows you kindness and then you give it all up. How much did this General offer you?” The Outsider’s voice was almost accusatory.

Corvo shrugged. Maybe he had felt intimidated, maybe he had just been in it for the gold, maybe it was the sick satisfaction that the fear of his name, The Masked Felon, had spread to yet another island outside of the Empire. He had taken some pleasure in ripping the life from those who had wronged him, it was true. Surely it was the same to do this on behalf of another person? The Outsider was all-seeing, yes, but omniscient he was not. He lacked the power to see into Corvo’s mind, was unable to uncover his thoughts, relying on his actions only for entertainment. Maybe that was what made this whole game all the more entertaining. The Outsider looked down at Corvo’s exposed mark, and subconsciously he hugged it to his chest protectively.

“You’re an interesting man, Corvo. One day your friend might also chance upon my blessing. Maybe I’ll be watching him too through all his trials and tribulations. Who knows? You might even see some friendly faces before you expect it.”

And with that final remark, the Outsider disappeared back into the void, not doubt still watching from the shadows. What had he meant by ‘friend’? Garrett wasn’t his friend. Corvo stared at the ceiling huffily for a very long time, idling over the details of the room, watching the orange light dim to nothing as the fire died out, the pale pinks and blues of the rising sun creeping across the room. Friendly faces? He wasn’t a fan of how the god spoke in indecipherable riddles, played mind games. Corvo was an upfront sort of person, he appreciated it when people said what they meant, so when the Outsider had appeared in his life, it had only gotten several hundred times more difficult. He got up, double-checked the locks on the doors, gently pressing his full body weight into it, ensuring it would hold for a vital few seconds on the off-chance that the Outsider actually was warning him about malicious plots.

As the day dawned again, Corvo returned to the bed and fell once again into a restless sleep, disturbed by what he had experienced that morning and concerned at the Outsider’s apparent interest in Garrett, just when Corvo had been so fervently trying to remove him from his life.

\----------------------

It felt like days before Garrett was conscious enough to lift his head. He felt rough, worse than he had ever felt before, and he’d gone through all sorts: illness, injury, deprivation, you name it. He’d been there, done that, got the shirt, and unceremoniously burnt it. Never before did he remember just wanting to tear himself into shreds just to make the pain stop. There was another man in the room, observing him. The concept startled Garrett, that someone had been sat there observing him while he was out cold, and in between pained sighs, he looked at the visitor. His vision was too blurred to make out any details, but the man’s posture was relaxed, leant forward on his knees with his elbows, stroking his chin leisurely with one hand. Garrett cocked his head the moment he felt comfortable enough to know he wasn’t simply going to vomit bile in front of this man. Despite being at rock bottom, oddly enough, he still felt conservative about showing any more vulnerabilities. Were there any more to be shown?

“I only want one thing from you, thief,” the voice said slowly after several minutes of observing Garrett, “I need to know what you were doing with a book on necromancy.”

Again with the necromancy. Garrett was already beating himself up internally for picking up the damn thing. That showed him not to do extra work for a client when he wasn’t being paid for it. Basso used to tell him not to do it simply because time was money and clients needed to respect his professional skills and yada yada yada, but this was the first time that something like this had actually come to bite him in the backside, hard. The details of the man became clearer and Garrett saw that his face was covered in a long rubber mask, like the others who had imprisoned him. There was no way he was co-operating with this… cult? Was it a cult? The last time he had told the truth, there had been no mercy, no positive sides to helping them. He was getting distracted. He shook his head fervently.

“I am going to get a confession out of you. We can do it the easy way or the hard way. What were you doing with the book?” The man’s didn’t raise his voice nor use crude language; he clearly wasn’t irritated at Garrett’s lack of co-operation. 

Several more minutes passed, the man simply tapping his foot while the air in the room grew heavier and heavier with trepidation. If it meant that his job was even going to get a single iota more difficult, Garrett was going to take it. Who knew, it might even yield a chance for him to escape, successfully this time. Anything to draw out the time between now and his inevitable execution. He gritted his teeth. Calling the man’s bluff.

It was a while before the man rose from his seat, sighing, Garrett’s answer ringing clear in the air. There was no way the thief was going to give them the confession willingly, “Just so you know, you can change your mind at any time.” The Whaler almost felt bad for the thief. He was looking so beaten up at the moment, he wasn’t sure he would even survive three hours with the assigned interrogator.

Garrett was left alone in the dark once the man had gone, still recovering from the effects of the poisonous drugs coursing through his system. He thought about a lot. Thought about Basso, thought about Erin. Tried to ignore the smell floating through the air that stank suspiciously of burning leather. Oddly enough, it was only the smell that motivated him to cry, one of the rare times that he allowed himself the self-indulgence of his own emotions. He tugged at the restraints, grinding his teeth and screaming inhumanly, willing that they’d just come away, that he’d be given a single chance to escape, feeling the pressure building in his head. He didn’t want this. He didn’t want to die. Didn’t want to die alone in some cold cell so far from home.

The interrogator came to the cell after a short while, humming cheerfully, pushing a metal two-level cart covered elegantly in a pure white cloth, silver instruments lined up along the length of the cart, a silver bowl settled on the lower level. This man was a lot bigger than any of the others had been, and he didn’t wear a mask, although he wore the same long coat and leather sash, with the addition of a white apron. There was no pistol hooked to the front of his belt, nor a wrist-mounted crossbow. Instead, the sleeves were rolled up to his elbows. He turned to Garrett and smiled. 

“Heard you didn’t want to sign the confession?”

Garrett spat in his face, rage hijacking him brain. The man simply looked at him and slowly wiped the saliva off his cheek, frowning. 

“I don’t really think that’s the best way to start business with someone. Very unprofessional.” His voice was almost concerned and he picked up a silver pair of pliers from the table. Garrett’s heart felt like it was seizing in terror. “Feel free to speak up when you’re ready to sign.”

The previous man was not only wrong about Garrett not lasting three hours with the torturer, he was out by a factor of sixty. It was precisely three minutes before Garrett passed out again, the screams dying down abruptly and the interrogator leaving the room to empty half a bowl of blood. 

“You know, I’m not sure he’s going to survive this. Should we tell Orion?”

His colleague shook his head, turning the page of his book leisurely, “If Orion heard about this, he’d murder us. I mean he would literally have us lined up and shot. We need this confession, He doesn’t need to know about how we got it. Should teach the little shit not to dabble in the dark arts.”

Really, it wasn’t going to teach the ‘little shit’ not to do anything. He would be dead. He couldn’t do anything if he was dead. There was a hotness rising up the Whaler’s body, he felt weak. He needed to go outside. When the interrogator returned to the cell and screaming resumed from the room down the corridor, he excused himself, didn’t bother informing his colleague who simply sighed and continued to read, making his way back upstairs to go for a walk, to take a smoke break, to get some air, to go for a piss. Any excuse was a good excuse. He didn’t need to hear this, his colleague seemed unbothered by the torture happening yards away, and was more than competent at guarding the area. The entrance was many stories up, and he had to take several breaks along the way, doubling over and forcing himself not to retch, at least to wait until he was outside,the sour taste of cruelty hitching in his throat and making his eyes sting and his head spin.

The crisp morning air didn’t really do much to calm his stomach, but he kept walking anyway. Tramped over the crunchy gravel path glistening with frost. Kept walking and walking, mask still on, out of the clearing in the woods, past the chapel, down through the village. He kept walking, and didn’t stop until he got to the docks.

\----------------------

Corvo was not well-rested, despite having spent the early morning drifting in and out of a light sleep. It had taken him several hours to allow himself to relax enough and stop overanalysing what the Outsider had said to him, and then woken up not much later, not refreshed and still tired. He had got up early, headed downstairs, ordered himself a beer and a tin of whatever the inn had in stock to eat for breakfast, and sat at the counter knocking the alcohol back and occasionally between daydreams using his spare hand to feed himself the tin of preserved apricots. The taste was far too sweet for this time of day, but it mattered not to Corvo. He’d been through much worse than having what basically amounted to beer and sugar for breakfast.

He stared at the posters above the bar, absentmindedly taking in whichever little details he could while crunching away. Wanted posters mainly, as well as people looking for their lost pets, odd jobs… wait. Was that a picture of himself? His own picture stared back at him; olive skin, long dark hair and hollow eyes unmistakeable among the features of all the other wanted criminals of the area. He stopped with the beer glass held to his mouth before slowly putting it back down. Not again. Not in another city. His own picture was accompanied by one of Garrett, the very same one that the Thief-Taker General had handed to him in their meeting several months ago, and the much paler gaunt face half veiled in scarf stared forward blankly, unseeing. Upon closer inspection, Corvo discovered, it wasn’t really an accurate description of the thief’s facial features, no wonder it had taken him so long to recognise the thief, and he wished the same mistakes had been applied in the creation of his own mugshot.

The innkeeper didn’t seem to have noticed the resemblance between Corvo and the poster, nor the sudden lack of movement - previously he had been stuffing the apricots into his mouth, now he was frozen, eyes wide, mouth slightly agape. He took a moment to calm himself, and then watched the innkeeper out of the corner of his eye, before he noticed, looked up, and squinted, wrinkles wrapped tightly around his old blue eyes.

“Don’t I know you?” The tone was accusative. 

Corvo’s stomach dropped. He feigned ignorance. “No… No, don’t recognise you. I’m not local, just stopped by for the night.”

“Wasn’t you that lad who was starting trouble in my inn?”

Corvo stopped and stared at the innkeeper. What did he mean? Memories began stirring in his brain as he thought harder, dug deeper. At this point, he definitely remembered the bar, the streets, a fight?… He wasn’t sure, but he figured it was important to work it out. Clearly this was a task to complete while on the ship, while sailing away. He tried to ignore the innkeeper’s dirty looks, quickly downed the rest of his beer and the apricots, overpaid him by a significant amount and then left swiftly with his head down, looking at the floor. It was a good thing the innkeeper hadn’t recognised him from the wanted poster, a good thing that whatever had happened just a few days before had annoyed him so much that he recognised him only from memory, as a man who got too drunk and started bar fights with strangers. He let the door swing shut behind him.

Corvo, coat slung over his shoulder, stepped into the cold morning air, breath leaving his mouth in warm puffs of steam. Winter was well on its way now. The ground was soft and spongy, wet with dew and sparkling spider webs hung above door frames as he walked to the end of the village, the frost crunching underneath his feet. He wrapped his arms around himself, shivering and thinking. He wondered about what Garrett was doing, and then batted the thought away. He wasn’t going to open himself to that kind of hurt again like he had with Jessamine. It only took one.

The village was slightly more lively than it had been the night before, which wasn’t to say much. There were, at most, two farmers working in the nearby fields, and one child running around with a hoop and a stick, woolen scarf flapping in the air, screaming as he went. A chicken strolled nonchalantly past Corvo, sitting down at the end of the path, staring at him blankly. He felt the breath contract in his chest ever so slightly. This place was getting to him. How did he feel intimidated by a chicken? The village was surrounded by fields at one end, and at another sat a huge chapel, the brickwork old and crumbling and wrapped in ivy, surrounded by a forest, gothic. He wondered which came first: the village or the chapel?

He needed directions to get back to the docks before he could do anything else. Squidging over the wet field towards one of the farmers, who watched him approach, he asked for directions, half shouting over the sounds of nearby sheep. The farmer pointed back towards where Corvo had come from, past the inn, and told him to follow the road, that it was impossible to miss. Corvo nodded his head in thanks and stepped back, over the cabbage and potato plants, climbed over the fence separating the field and path, and started walking, pulling his coat closer around his chest and hitching his collar up, head down. It would be a mistake to allow himself to be spotted and apprehended now. He was so close.

Corvo walked back towards the docks in the direction that the farmer had pointed him in. May he never take another assassination job. It wasn’t often that he let his morals get in the way of more practical matters, but the last few days had been a vicious check on his ethics. The Outsider had been right, it was pathetic that he’d allowed himself to be manipulated into becoming a hired hand, no better than Daud. In reality, what he was doing now was on roughly the same level of immoral behaviour as Jessamine’s murder, gods rest her soul. Maybe Garrett didn’t have as many loving supporters and subjects as the late Empress had, maybe he did only have one or two close friends, but it was still a life, still another beating heart with feelings and hopes and dreams. These were all things that Corvo had forgotten in the blind rage of the months following Jessamine’s death and his interrogation. Maybe he was beginning to let go.

The day slowly warmed as he crunched his way along long gravel paths, avoiding fallen branches and piles of horse dung-- 

Except he wasn’t alone.

There were footsteps stumbling in the woods to his right, still quite a distance away, magnified by the periodic cracking and crunching of dead wood, leaves, and other forest debris under the heavy boots. Whoever it was was not making any effort to disguise themselves. It was only just possible to see the figure through the trees, head held high, tripping occasionally, walking along a path that up above joined to make a fork in the road. This wouldn’t have bothered Corvo, were it not for the uniform that the man was wearing. A Whaler. He didn’t have his gas mask on but that was definitely Whaler uniform, from the boots to the belt to the hood. Corvo blinked behind a tree, watching the man travel towards the fork, deliberating. The Whaler was looking around, head turning erratically left and right, evidently searching for something, and when he got to the fork in the road, watched carefully by Corvo, the man put his hands on his hips and stopped, still searching. 

Corvo had to stop himself from blinking behind the bastard and slitting his throat from ear to ear. What were they doing in this neck of the woods? He thought they had disappeared from existence, hopefully all dead, as soon as Emily had become Empress and Daud disappeared; there was no need for them in Dunwall, let alone some random island far to the south of Serkonos, so what exactly were they doing here? A surge of paranoia hit Corvo in the throat, making his heart skip and his legs wobble. Were they following him? Did they want his blood in return for Daud’s? There was no way...

The Whaler turned around after a few minutes of apparent deliberation and headed back towards the village. Curiosity gripped Corvo by the soul and he ducked back behind the tree, shuffling around, matching the curve of the trunk as the Whaler passed, and knew he needed to find out what they were doing here. He followed the man back through the woods, opting to blink behind trees so that the sound of his footsteps wouldn’t be so much of a risk. He needed to know where this Whaler was going. It was maybe half an hour before Corvo even had the small village back in his sights, at which point, the Whaler pulled the gas mask out of his belt pouch and took a minute to settle it back over his face, adjusting it momentarily for comfort. Corvo had a nasty feeling that there might be more of these men. This could be very dangerous.

The man walked up through the village, behind the houses so that the farmers still working in the fields wouldn’t be able to see him, and worked his way up to the chapel at the end of the road. Corvo blinked onto the roof and continued to observe the man there in the absence of any trees. It worked as well as anything, as he remained undetected by anyone other than a stray owl who simply looked back at him with wide brown eyes, nonplussed. From that point, the Whaler looped back onto the path and walked through the churchyard, into the clearing behind the chapel. More trees. It gave Corvo a good cover to continue to blink on ground level, as from this point it was easier to see what was up ahead. There was a small wooden shack up about, nestled in the woods, an inconspicuous building among the trees, easily mistaken for a logger’s hut or a shed for farming equipment. The Whaler let himself into the house easily, requiring no key or special knock, or anything of the sort. The place appeared to be almost entirely unguarded. Corvo knew better, knew that the inside would be teeming with well-practiced supernatural assassins. Best proceed with caution.

Corvo simply waited, watching Whalers come and stand outside on occasion for smoke or piss breaks. They chattered and huddled in groups against the pale sunlight when they stood in groups, casting long hard shadows on the ground, and when they were on their own, they frequently sat down, backs to the wall, staring up into space or writing letters or journals. 

It was getting dark. Corvo had been stood there for hours, deliberating on his next course of action. He was still free to leave, but he needed to know what these men were doing here. His life could be in danger. Emily’s life could be in danger. It was a necessity to at least find out what they were doing, and he briefly reassured himself that didn’t have to kill anyone before taking a calming breath to dissuade his legs from shaking any more, and stepped forwards, blinking onto the roof of the cabin at the first opportunity he saw. 

The roof was not nearly as stable as it had looked, and it buckled underneath his feet threateningly. Corvo froze where he crouched, attempting to subtly spread his weight out over as large an area as possible to reduce possibility of collapse. One of the Whalers left the cabin, swinging the door closed, causing the roof to rattle and Corvo to suck in a sharp breath through gritted teeth, willing the thing not to collapse underneath him. It held steady, and the man below appeared not to notice Corvo’s shadow cast on the ground beside him by the setting sun. It was now or never.

Corvo dropped down on top of the guard, catching him off guard, dragging him swiftly into a nearby clump of trees, pulling off his gas mask and stowing it in the back of his waistband, holding his hand firmly over the man’s mouth and nose, preventing him from breathing in. He went limp quickly which made Corvo’s job all the easier. Generally he had no qualms about outright murdering a Whaler but the past few days with Garrett had made him reconsider. He dragged the lifeless body into a well-protected area behind a small bush, covered from any guards that would happen to look out the window of the hut or, god forbid, leave it to take a smoke break. He dropped the Whaler onto his back, held his own hand over the slightly open mouth of the Whaler, checking he was still breathing before pinning the captive’s arms with his knees and delivering a short, hard slap to the man’s cheek. He snapped his eyes open, flinching reflexively, and took a moment before both his pupils were the same size and he appeared conscious enough to give Corvo some useful information. Still pinning the man, Corvo grabbed he cheeks and forced the man to look into his eyes, his fingers biting hard enough to leave bruises, but not giving enough of a shit to loosen his grip. “What are you doing in that cabin?” His voice was dark and hoarse, threatening the Whaler not to give him any bullshit or he’d kill him right there on the damp forest floor, among the mushrooms.

It seemed to work. The Whaler, eyes wide with terror and sweat rapidly forming on his brow, licked his lips and struggled lightly against Corvo’s restraint. “Rune fragments. We were studying rune fragments.” A ragged breath, “Working for Aldous-”

Corvo had heard enough. There was a swift, mechanical crack as the pistol-sized crossbow was withdrawn from Corvo’s pocket and aimed at the torso of the man pinned on the floor. A snap indicated that its contents, a neon green sleep dart, were ejected point-blank, straight into the chest of the man quivering on his back. It took only seconds to work, and Corvo continued to apply pressure to his arms as he went limp once again. Corvo wasn’t a monster - if a man co-operated with him, within reasonable limits, he’d allow them to live (these days he did anyway). He’d be sore when he woke up though, and cold. The effects would last for several hours, which was more than enough time to find out exactly the Whalers were doing with the rune fragments and then get out, hopefully be well on his way back to Dunwall by the time he woke up. Corvo rolled him onto his side for good measure, and then covered him with a few fallen branches and leaves, dropping the gas mask onto the ground along with the unconscious body, and hoping that the disguise would hold for long enough. He stood back up and surveyed the cabin. More lights. He ducked back down behind the bush, eavesdropping on the party, maybe four or five of them, he wasn’t sure.

“We got another defector?”

“Seems so. Been a bad day.”

There was a short silence before Corvo heard a match strike and the party dissolved in various different directions, muttering agreements to look for their colleague. Corvo double checked the disguise job he’d made of the earlier Whaler, adjusted some of the leaves. It would have to do until the whole area was shrouded in darkness, at which point he would be nearly impossible to find. He couldn’t see any more lights from inside the cabin so he set three concussion mines around the ground at the door, deciding that whoever wanted to come in could deal with the mines first.

Inside the cabin there wasn’t much: a table, a chair, a trap door. This was clearly where they were all coming from. He propped the trap door open and peered down into it. A short ladder led down into a well-lit passage. This could be very dangerous. Having none of Piero’s remedy with him, and not expecting to find any in the vicinity, he needed to be very careful with the powers granted to him by the Outsider. 

Deciding not to stay up above ground for too long, lest the other Whalers come back to the hut and see him there. He descended into the trap door, clinging onto the rungs of the ladder, climbing down as quickly and quietly as he could muster. The coat, usually a good protective barrier between himself and whichever man he was fighting at any given time, caught around his feet, forcing him to stop once or twice to prevent it from tangling him. He paused for a moment before throwing caution to the wind and dropping down into the corridor below him. Miraculously, there were no guards to spot him.

He hurried through the tunnels, barely looking at the decor. The place was modest as a whole, but did boast thick red drapes and wooden benches lined up against the walls, which were no more than dry wooden boards. Whoever had built this place clearly had a lot of money and influence, but didn’t like to show it. He looked for a hiding place, flattening himself to the wall, praying to every god in existence that a group of Whalers wouldn’t just walk round the corner armed to the teeth with pistols, blink powers and crossbows. 

This place was like a labyrinth, stretching out in all different directions, steps descending down level after level, and not once did Corvo encounter a Whaler. He become bolder, stopped creeping and instead stood up straight, searching through every room he came across, his boots echoing out loud on the stone floors. Room after room, tunnel after tunnel, up and down staircases, looking for some information, anything about the rune fragments or the man who wanted so desperately to know about them and what they did. This was not a matter for anyone outside of Gristol. The Outsider whispered in his ear, telling him to keep going.

Somewhere deep in the belly of the tunnels, Corvo came across a set of barracks, headed at one end by a larger single room with a four-poster bed, along with the customary desk and chair, a set of drawers, a cupboard. This looked very promising.

The desk was the obvious place to start. He trailed his hands over the dark wood, studying the many yellowed parchments sprawled messily on the surface. The topics ranged from the Outsider, to bone charms, to runes, different books sat upright, supported by plain bookends, two identical covers: red velvety coverings infused with gems and one more book with a brown cover. Corvo doubted that whatever was in these books weren’t going to be of much use. His hands were running over the last of the parchments, studying intently, when a noise made his ears prick up. A low humming. There was a rune nearby. His heart hammered as he searched all the drawers in the desk, looking desperately for this little piece of evidence. It must be here somewhere.

As a last resort, he picked up one of the red books and opened it. The loud scattering of multiple hard objects hitting the floor was jarring as Corvo froze for a second, the hairs on the back of his neck standing up, before he dropped to his knees and started scraping them back into the hollowed-out book. Now was the time, if ever, that he had to leave. He stashed some of the papers in the back of his waistband for want of a good bag, hurrying back out of the room, through the barracks, out the door-

Several things happened at once.

There was a scream several floors up and the sounds of running boots, pistols going off. Clearly the Whalers that had gone searching for the body had found one. The sharp _snap_ of the concussion traps going off was a clear indication that it was time to get out, _right now_. This was non-negotiable. Corvo broke into a run, turned the corner once he had left the barracks and ran straight into a masked Whaler carrying an oil lamp, going to investigate the commotion. He froze as soon as Corvo had appeared in his view, and before he could attack the guard, the Whaler jumped back and threw the oil lamp at Corvo’s torso, who leapt back to safety and ducked out of its way, the oil spilling all over the floor and with a flash it ignited, the surrounding wooden walls and drapery going up in hot, raw flames as soon as the oil touched it. Corvo’s path out was blocked. He could see the Whaler fleeing on the other side of the wall of fire, screaming for assistance, the heat warping the air around him, the toxic smoke already working its way into his lungs, drawing ragged coughs from his chest, stepping back as the heat on his skin became too much. 

This had been a mistake.

The fire spread quickly along the hall, jumping from drape to drape, all accelerants. Corvo turned and ran. There was only one way to go: down further into the ground.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry it's taking so long to get so many chapters out lol. Hope you enjoyed. Planning on releasing next chapter at the weekend (because it's my favourite one so far) and I've got a buffer of chapters all lined up. Eyes peeled!


	10. The Inferno

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Corvo tries to find a way out of the tunnels.

Garrett stared at the floor in the cold, dead cell, and the cold, dead floor stared right back at him, unmoving. He wasn’t going to survive to see tomorrow, he knew that much. It didn’t matter whether he signed the confession or not at this point, he could feel his organs giving up on him, system shutdown imminent. He dropped his head, conserving what little energy he had left. He hadn’t eaten a proper meal in… how long was it? Hadn’t had any water, ready to kill a man, ready to kill anyone who came between him and a drink if he was able, but that wasn’t exactly forthcoming. In the brief periods when he did sleep, no more than five minutes at a time, he dreamt of great oases of clear, blue water stretching for miles in every direction, surrounded by serene palm trees, watched a black spot on the horizon creep ever closer as he felt the void pull him in lovingly. But when he threw himself at these huge, beautiful refuges, there would always be an uncomfortable jerk in his stomach and suddenly he’d be back in that dark place where his stomach twisted in his abdomen and his head thumped and his leg burned and _everything hurt, it hurt so fucking much_. 

He twitched.

The first few times that he’d woken up from these not-quite-fever-dreams he’d screamed. Hoped that the cracking voice would invoke some kind of sympathy in the masked men but it never did. The only indication that they hadn’t simply abandoned him, walked away and left him to rot was the occasional return of the torturer, at which point Garrett would check out and let him do whatever he was going to do. He had lost count of the number of fingers snapped, punches to the face and stomach, deep incisions in his skin or fingernails pulled. How many times had the blood that had dried between his nose and mouth been re-wetted? And did it matter?

He hallucinated that Basso had passed the door, looked into the room, and then disappeared before he could lay hands on Garrett. Cried without any tears. Hurt too much. Nothing. He had shivered so violently that he couldn’t even move without hurting.

The man from before walked into the room, holding the document. A stern look on his face. “This is your last chance. If you don’t sign this right now, we are going to assume you are deceiving the watch and you will be put to death.”

Garrett didn’t move and didn’t talk. So the man left.

The cell felt like it grew colder. When had he given up? He couldn’t remember. The ragged breaths ripped from his chest worried him. It was disturbing. He had seen disturbing things in the past, it was part of his line of work, but it was something else to hear the life ebb slowly away from his own chest.

The silence was penetrating. Since the torches had been put out long ago, not even the dull flickering sound was present to give him any reassurance. There was no warmth down here. A man appeared out of the darkness, the same man that Garrett had seen in the tendrils of the pain drug’s smoke not so long ago, same pale face, short hair, black eyes. He studied Garrett from above before he straightened his back and walked in a circle, behind Garrett’s back and then back in front, steps slow and even on the still-wet floor, stepping carefully over puddles of blood, vomit and fingernails. Gracefully. Garrett wasn’t sure where this man had come from, he hadn’t heard the door open or close, but in this circle of hell, nobody was actually real. He could have lost consciousness again and had someone enter his cell without his knowledge, but Garrett doubted that. This stranger didn’t stink of shit and decay and bad things. Didn’t make his toes curl. There wasn’t a chance that he was a captor.

The man surveyed Garrett, unspeaking, making several more rounds at his own leisurely pace before strolling to a corner in the room that was clearly visible to Garrett and stood up straight, looking around every so often, as if keeping watch, never speaking, never even looking the prisoner in the eyes when he occasionally twisted his neck up to look at him. He wasn’t like the others, made Garrett feel at ease, or as close to it as was possible in this situation.

This time, Garrett fell asleep willingly.

\----------------------

Corvo knew he didn’t have much time left to find a way out of the burning tunnels. The air was very quickly becoming thick with smoke and smouldering ashes of stray debris, the flames licking the sides of the corridor as they approached him, crackling clearly audible as pieces of wood furniture splintered and cracked in the heat. _Don’t panic_ , he reminded himself, _there has to be a way out._

The best way out at this very moment was to go down. Smoke rises, so logically the best course of action would be to go downstairs, he thought. He wasn’t sure what he would find down there but there was no other choice. He flew down the nearest staircase, wooden and dry, which he knew would be up in smoke somewhere within the next few minutes like the rest of everything in this awful place. Only now was he realising how everything around him was flammable, the building wasn’t just dangerous because of the Whalers, it was now a death trap.

He proceeded through the maze cautiously, taking care to outstrip the black smoke tendrils reaching out to grab him and pull him to his death. In the days when he was a vital instrument in the Loyalist coup he thought he’d be offed by some guard, or his impulsive use of magic would irreparably damage him in some way, or the Outsider would simply grow tired of him and pull some nonsensical twist that would invariably result in Corvo lying belly up with his innards on the floor. After that, he worried that a rogue assassin would take Emily out before him, or he’d simply drink himself to death in Dunwall Tower’s wine cellar, but none of those had happened yet. Being trapped in a tunnel in a foreign land to be burnt to a crisp by a group of assassins, who Corvo thought had ceased to exist and were maybe working to take him down in revenge, or were maybe instead working for someone else… that wasn’t exactly on the list.

His boots thumped against the ground as he searched the floor for a way out. There was nothing. Nothing except another staircase, so he took that one too. He seemed to have bought himself a few more minutes so he took the opportunity to double over, lean on his knees and catch his breath. Gather his thoughts.

How had he got himself into this mess? Why couldn’t he just let anything be? He mentally scolded himself, wishing he could turn back time and force himself to go straight to the docks and not seen the Whaler. God forbid he actually die in this place and Emily would not only have to rule by herself, but would also grow up without a father. Corvo had a lot of self hatred but he was also a pragmatist: Emily would not survive a single month as Empress without him, she was still so young, needed so much guidance. Even with the many tutors, carers, bodyguards and other auxiliary staff Corvo had personally sought out over the course of several months at great personal expense, he knew he wouldn’t trust anyone with Emily and kept her within his sights at all times, going as far as to take her to meetings with him. And he had taken a chance on this job, he wasn’t even sure why; and now he might not even see her again. Something gripped his lungs and it became hard to breathe, and it wasn’t the smoke that he knew was slowly descending onto him. He pushed the thoughts away and took a deep breath, feeling the black cloud lifting. He needed to crack on.

Proceeding, he looked for the next staircase. The air was getting very damp and heavy, which Corvo knew meant he was getting deeper and deeper down into the earth. He was about to descend again when a very loud crashing sound above him forced him to stop and listen carefully past the quiet crackling above. It stopped briefly and there was some scuffling.

_Crash_

Corvo’s legs sprang into action as he leapt out of the way, heart in his mouth. A black figure hurtled through the roof and landed on the floor in front of him, bouncing before coming to a stop, groaning and shifting slowly, in pain, too beaten up to move more than a few inches. Corvo peered down and, with great surprise, found a Whaler at his feet, mask off, coat smouldering, looking very injured. The Whaler looked up at Corvo, and scrunched his eyes up, shaking his head, black soot smudged on his face and the faint smell of burnt hair following him. He tried to prop himself up but he must have broken his arm as it bent the wrong way and he let out a yelp of pain as he tried to rest weight on it, before attempting in earnest to make a getaway by rolling onto his feet.

Corvo didn’t take chances. 

Without thinking, he pulled out his blade, and ignoring fervent protestations, twirled it, waited a fraction of a second for the distinctive _click_ of metal latching onto metal as the blade unfolded and lunged and planted it into the throat of the man sprawled at his mercy, just above his adam’s apple, watching as a small fountain of blood spurted onto the floor and he writhed, gripping his throat and screaming breathless screams. Corvo watched him for a moment before stepping over the body and continuing downward.

He tried to ignore his guilt at the murder suddenly tugging at his stomach. 

He knew he must be getting to the bottom of the pit by now. The barracks that were commonplace on the upper floors had disappeared and were replaced with utility and cleaning cupboards, there was less lighting, it didn’t feel as ‘lived in’ as the floors above. Corvo was surprised that he hadn’t run into anyone particularly dangerous down here, not yet anyway, apart from the two Whalers above, but there were so many barracks. Maybe this place wasn’t custom built? That, or he had a much larger conspiracy on his hands. Either way, he was becoming increasingly concerned at the apparent lack of an exit, and at this point, it would be nearly impossible to work his way back up, the whole upper floors would be completely ablaze by now, and the powers granted to his by the Outsider (who was undoubtedly sitting somewhere in the void in the comfiest chair imaginable with all the popcorn) sadly didn’t include the power to become flame retardant or, importantly, impervious to smoke inhalation. 

So he continued.

In fact, he had been standing on the penultimate floor, and after a brief search, he ran down to the next floor expecting something else. It was very dark and very cold. Condensation stuck to the walls, making it slick and slimy. Corvo pulled his coat to his chest tighter, protecting himself. There was, in fact, another person here. A large man with… was that blood on his front? He wore the Whaler uniform but he didn’t give Corvo the impression that he was like the rest; usually men who had been taken from nothing and raised to be lethal and effective hunters of men. Daud had a particular philosophy when it came to his assassination work, one that he passed onto his underlings: to take pride in their work and not to draw pain out unnecessarily. The man turned around and Corvo noticed first the white apron he was wearing was splattered in blood. Maybe he was just a meat trader or a cook? It seemed a bit inconvenient to bring meat all the way down here when so few men appeared to reside in these halls. He was carrying a very large, very sharp-looking knife in his right hand.

Corvo decided to call him the Butcher.

Corvo stared at him from across the hall, studying his figure. He second-guessed murdering him on the spot; perhaps he would be useful. It was impossible to tell from here that there was an inferno roaring above which worked very favourably in Corvo’s advantage. He blinked in front of him to cries of fear, holding the still-bloodied blade to the Butcher’s throat, hands unshaking. He meant business, the Butcher appeared to sense this. He gripped his weapon, hard.

“Who are you?” the Butcher asked, his voice surprisingly quiet for a man of his stature.

Corvo didn’t reply but instead blinked in front of him, just out of arm’s reach, holding the blade up in a clear show of power. “If you don’t drop that weapon I’m going to gut you like a fucking fish.”

The Butcher complied immediately, the knife clattering to the floor. Smart move. Corvo still didn’t lower his blade, instead gesturing for the man to turn around and walk towards the wall. Once he was pressed against it and Corvo had checked every visible pocket for hidden weapons, he turned him around and pressed the point of the blade into the small of the Butcher’s back.

“Is there a way out of here?” His voice emerged from his throat as a growl, low and threatening.

The Butcher took a moment before nodding his head slowly, “There’s a room about three floors up. Kitchen I think. One of the store rooms has a passage leading to the chapel.”

Corvo was surprised. Usually it took a lot more work to get information like that out of people who didn’t necessarily like him or what he stood for. He paused for a second, thinking. How had he managed to miss this passage? It wasn’t like him to fail to spot pieces of information like that but he had been rushed and stressed, so it was more than possible.

“I hate waste,” Corvo said, lowering his blade, “Get out of here.”

_Hypocrite!_

He picked up the knife the Butcher had been holding to prevent him from re-arming himself and watched the large man stumble up the stairs towards the kitchen. There was no way the Whalers were still hanging around, and if they were, then whatever the Butcher said wasn’t going to change much, it was just one more person to stab.

He was sure there was a lot of stabbing very imminent, regardless of the moral implications.

Whatever. It was time to get out of there. Time waits for no man. Corvo paced back towards the staircase when he realised it had gone very quiet, and it wasn’t just the absence of another human, the oppressive darkness of the cellar, or the lack of crackling torch, it was something else. Something more sinister. 

He paused.

The air felt heavy but upon further inspection, Corvo found it wasn’t actually completely silent. Aside from the quiet ringing in his ears, there was another noise, but it was weak. Perhaps another Whaler. Corvo pulled his blade out again and proceeded carefully down the corridor, ensuring his boots padded softly on the flagstone to avoid drawing attention to himself, lest someone come flying out of the darkness to attack him. 

The first room he came across was empty. It was small, dirty with moss and mouse droppings, a chair stood in the middle facing the iron-bound door. Corvo shuddered. It had been unexpected but maybe he wasn’t entirely surprised - it didn’t take a genius to work out that that this cellar wasn’t for meat butchering, but probably more for people butchering. He cursed himself for letting the Butcher go. It brought back memories of his own torture that were just slightly too fresh and slightly too raw, ones that he’d spent a lot of time, money and emotional effort to avoid confronting, but here he was, stood in the place where someone else had been beaten, burnt, maybe murdered. He stepped out of the room and quickly closed the door. Nobody in there.

The next room was largely the same: slimy, dirty, damp. Not worth looking at.

The third room Corvo was going to bypass but something made him stop. The air smelled faintly of iron here, the scent heavy on his lungs, and the sconces outside the door had been freshly extinguished as they were still smoking slightly, faint wisps of white floating up above charred embers. This was worth investigating.

He cracked the door open slightly and immediately knew he had made the right choice.

The stench of blood, vomit and phosphorous hit him in the face. Corvo doubled back on himself, coughing for several seconds before collecting himself, holding the front of his shirt to his face before pressing on. The shirt didn’t do much, it was true, but at least it was something. Faint groaning could be heard from inside the room, which staggered Corvo slightly. He had not expected to find a live prisoner down here.

And he certainly had not expected to find Garrett.

At first, Corvo hadn’t recognised the thief, remembering him as a generally healthy person in his thirties, a bit pale and on the short side but nothing troubling. The person bound to the chair in front of Corvo was not even a shadow of the man he was mere days ago. What Corvo could see through the blood and muck caked on Garrett’s body were sweat and tear tracks down the otherwise filthy cheeks, a grey tinge that was evident even in the low light of the cell. 

Corvo found a stray match in one of his pockets and struck it, stepping over various unnamed bodily fluids pooled on the floor, taking a closer look at the thief. He wasn’t sure if Garrett was conscious or not because of the pained juddering breaths, and he didn’t appear to react to some stimuli while reeling at others. Corvo waved a hand in front of Garrett’s face and he flinched, crying out, but when he spoke to the thief, no matter how gentle the voice, there was no response. If this was learned helplessness, it had taken a very short time to learn it. 

Corvo had never seen Garrett’s hair while he had been captured at the clocktower, but now he saw through the darkness that it was short, shorter than Corvo would have estimated, and was dark but patchy, grey hairs beginning to show themselves among the black fuzz. Clearly, long hair just got in the way of his work, but it seemed that he was very young to be going grey, or losing patches. 

Corvo placed a hand gently on Garrett’s cheek, ignoring the shudder, the yelp, the attempt to wrench his arms free to protect himself. The reaction definitely tugged on his heart, and the thief’s skin was far too cold to be safe, but Garrett didn’t shiver. What he did do was shift himself away from Corvo’s grip, rasping violently as if there was some kind of liquid in his lungs, the exertion of simply breathing making itself painfully apparent. Corvo knew that he needed to get him out of this place as soon as possible. There was no guarantee that the fire would fuel itself all the way down to the cellar, but it was a categorical certainty that the man would not survive another hour here.

He couldn’t lose another friend.

When had he come to view Garrett as a friend? he asked himself as he stroked the thief’s head with his thumb reassuringly and carefully drew his blade to cut away at the bindings rubbing at his wrists and ankles, taking care not to nick the pale skin. It took a moment, but soon Garrett was free, albeit unable to move himself, and the band of skin that had been sat underneath the restraints was rubbed raw, bloody cracks apparent where there had obviously been a frenzied struggle. Corvo cursed the Whalers, hating them even more now than ever before. Was that possible? What was it with them and hurting all the people who knew him? The guilt at putting his blade through the throat of the man who had dropped down in front of him earlier eased immediately and significantly.

Garrett was surprisingly light to pick up. Corvo hooked his arms underneath his legs and back and stood up straight, lifting the man with ease. The cold of Garrett’s skin quickly became too much for Corvo, so he laid Garrett on the floor just outside of the cell and took a moment to wrap him up in the long blue-and-gold trench coat, turning him over carefully in his arms, ensuring all the stray appendages were tucked safely inside. His arm was very clearly broken in a bad way, and most of the fingernails were gone, so Corvo propped the arm close to his chest, wrapped it, and picked him up again, holding him tightly to his own torso protectively. Garrett would have to wait until they were in a safe place to let Corvo look after his wounds. For now, it was imperative that they get out of there alive.

Following the directions of the Butcher from earlier, Corvo swiftly worked his way up the three floors, finding little difficulty in carrying Garrett, especially now that he was restrained and there weren’t stray limbs getting in the way. Hopefully with the coat adding an extra layer of warm air, it would slowly begin to raise Garrett’s body temperature to a safe level. He shifted uncomfortably in the coat, but didn’t open his eyes.

“You’re just going to have to put up with it for now. Hang on.” Corvo knew that it was probably futile to talk to Garrett, that he was probably off somewhere in his own little world, and maybe he was even doing the talking to reassure himself, but it helped somewhat. The talking calmed him down and stopped him from hyperventilating, so he kept going, placating himself as he bounded down the corridor, feeling the air grow thicker in his own lungs.

The smoke. 

The fire must have descended to a floor or two above him because now the sounds of flames were roaring above them and the furniture was crackling and splintering in the heat. It wouldn’t be good for Garrett in any capacity to warm up so quickly so Corvo hurried on, stepping over the various dead Whaler bodies that had appeared on the floor. The thick, choking, _burning_ smoke must have flushed them out of their little rat holes.

The kitchen was easily found. It was at the end of the corridor, the door very clearly wide open, the room dark. Corvo gripped Garrett and hurried over, rolling up his sleeves as the room got hotter and the smoke got thicker. They had both began to cough as Corvo searched the various store cupboards for some secret passage, leaving Garrett on the floor in the centre of the room where the air was the clearest, but still ragged coughs were torn from his lungs and settled on the floor in a puddle of an unknown fluid next to his head. Corvo tore his gaze away and continued searching, dropping to his knees, opening each door frantically as the heat burnt his lungs. He knew there was no way they were going to survive if the Butcher had lied to them. 

A sudden brainwave hit Corvo and he dropped his search for the exit, leaving the kitchen and going into the hall. The dead Whalers were all laid out on the floor, tangled in each other’s limbs, sprawled among each other, and Corvo crawled over to the closest two, pulling their masks off and setting the first one over his head. It seemed to provide some protection and he coughed and rejoiced momentarily as clean air flooded into his lungs, ignoring the disgusted feeling of wearing the masks of the assassins who had taken so much from him. He crawled back to Garrett and pulled it over his head, tightening the supportive straps, ensuring the fit was tight, rolling his head onto the side so that if he did cough up fluid again, it wouldn’t choke him. Corvo didn’t know that these masks were actually functional until now, so he gave thanks to every god he could think of, including the Outsider. 

But he knew the filters would only last so long, it was almost impossible to see now, even with the thick glass lenses protecting him, and the heat was swiftly becoming unbearable. Corvo continued to bang each of the store cupboard doors open before finding the correct one and studied the insides; a long, dark passage that looked like it had been built out of the rock, but rougher than the rest of the base. Returning to Garrett, something caught Corvo’s eye, a glint of gold, a wheel, a pile of jewellery. He turned and pulled Garrett into the cleaner air of the tunnel, protecting him from the worst of the smoke, before returning to the kitchen, unwrapping the cloth packages with shaking hands.

His mask. 

He gripped it briefly before putting it back down and unwrapping the larger package, finding the huge black compound bow and quiver that Garrett had clearly cherished so much. A further investigation into the glowing embers of the kitchen fire revealed nothing but charred leather, which was by now unusable. He grabbed both the bow and the mask, not thinking too much about the implications of his find, leaving all the jewellery, throwing himself into the tunnel after Garrett, hearing the fire above them roar, slamming the cupboard door shut and collecting himself for half a second, pulling the stuffy mask off his face and throwing it on the floor. It bounced pathetically and rolled to a stop; the filter had indeed clogged quickly and it was by now useless. They had to keep moving.

In order to make things easier for himself, Corvo donned the metal mask instead which sat a lot more comfortably against his face and didn’t steam up at the lenses; opened the bow as far as it would go (it was very small owing to Garrett’s slight frame) and hooked it over his shoulder along with the quiver. There was a very good chance that this place was crawling with Whalers trying to save themselves from the fire, but Corvo ignored that thought for now, hoping against hopes that they wouldn’t encounter anyone unfriendly. He picked Garrett up again and soldiered on into the tunnels.

Corvo wished he could tell Garrett that they were out of danger, that everything was going to be alright, but even he still didn’t know that. The sounds of boots running over stone above their heads made Corvo’s heart pound, he knew that on his own with an unconscious thief, he wouldn’t be able to protect them both. Might not even be able to protect himself.

The tunnel went on for a very long time, although the stones that were constantly getting in his way, trying to trip him up and hit his toes and were making things a lot more difficult. He appeared to be walking uphill now, and so far they hadn’t run into anyone, threat or not, so Corvo felt safe to put Garrett down on a nearby rock and take a breather.

Ensuring that Garrett’s head was in a comfortable and safe position, Corvo sat down. He was very thirsty and had a bad headache from the smoke inhalation but apart from that, he was fine. He knew he would be able to take stock of Garrett’s injuries as soon as they got to a safer place and hopefully would be able to treat them without too much of an issue, but he tried not to think too much about it. To psych himself out and declare the situation unsalvageable before even attempting to save it was a folly at the very least, and one that he had struggled with many times before in the past. He wasn’t going to fall prey to it again. He brushed some of the sweat off his brow and found that a large smear of soot came with it. He wiped it on his shirt and stood up again.

“Got yourself into one hell of a mess didn’t you?” He scolded Garrett without bite, who didn’t respond, before stopping still. He felt like he was being watched.

It was true. The Butcher from before was looking at them from down the tunnel. There was no chance that they had just caught up with him: it had been so long since he had fled from the cellar, and although he was undoubtedly slower than Corvo, even when he was carrying Garrett, he had been looking for the tunnel door for a good few minutes. No, the Butcher had clearly returned for something. Whatever it was, thought Corvo, it’s not good news. He laid Garrett carefully back on the stone before unsheathing the blade once again. Had it not been abundantly clear before that Corvo would be able to kill him without a second thought?

The Butcher began to walk towards them, holding something behind his back, apron still affixed to his front. Corvo stood in front of Garrett, protecting him from whatever this man was going to throw at them, “Stay back!”

The Butcher ignored the warnings and pulled a small crossbow out from behind his back, brandishing it wildly, yelling. “I’m going to fucking kill you if you don’t hand the thief over.” His eyes were wild, the short brown hair plastered to his forehead, “He’s wanted by the Watch. If you don’t give him to me I’ll kill you too.”

Yeah. Over Corvo’s dead body. Hah.

“Drop the fucking weapon.” Corvo knew the command was useless but it was worth a try anyway. He knew he should have just murdered the bastard while he had the chance. Should have slit his throat and let him bleed out all over the cold stone floor. It wouldn’t even have been murder, it would be a mercy killing.

The Butcher responded by loosing the bolt in the crossbow, and Corvo reacted instinctively, even though he knew the loss of magic would be difficult to recover from. He tensed his hand and the air stilled around him, the crack of the crossbow mechanisms slowing to a crawl. He bent down, pulled Garrett out of the way, and ran for the Butcher, spinning the blade in his hands and knocking the crossbow onto the floor, grabbing his throat. Time resumed the normal rate and the Butcher looked at him with wide eyes for a split second before Corvo plunged the blade between his neck and his left shoulder, twisted it, earning himself a howl, and retracting the bladet; he pushing the man to the floor, writhing in his own blood. Silently he watched the light fade from the man’s eyes slowly and spat on his corpse as they turned dim before turning and walking back to Garrett, picking him up ever so gently.

“He won’t be bothering you any more.”

Corvo stepped over the Butcher’s body, resisting the urge to summon rats to eat the remains. He couldn’t afford the magic. He was already so drained, and it wasn’t entirely necessary, purely emotional. He still needed to get Garrett home.

The air was clear enough now that only the remnants of smoke could be smelled on Corvo’s clothes so he pulled the mask from Garrett’s face and dropped it on the floor, letting him breathe more easily. Corvo knew he would never get used to Garrett’s gaunt and beaten face but he could satisfy himself in the knowledge that he had murdered the man who had done it. It wasn’t easier, but it felt a bit better.

Predictably, the tunnel led to the chapel, which was mercifully empty. It would be stupid to stay there though Corvo knew, as before long it would be swarming with Whalers, or the Watch, or something equally bad that he wouldn’t be able to handle by himself. He spotted a splatter of blood on the floor next to a stray glove: one that looked like Garrett’s, and he shuddered, pushing the thought to the back of his mind.

Climbing with great difficulty to the top of the chapel, Corvo found himself out on the roof, staring out across the Eternal City. The shack behind the chapel through which Corvo had entered was ablaze, as were some of the trees that surrounded it, despite the cold night and the thin layer of frost covering the ground. Some of the villagers had surrounded it, throwing buckets of water over it in vain, not knowing how far down the complex went. It was undoubtedly exceedingly dangerous. Once all the wooden structural supports had been burnt, there would be nothing left to support the ground on top, and it would all collapse into one huge, deadly sinkhole. Corvo didn’t want to chance it. He wasn’t sure where he was going next, but wherever it was, it would be for Garrett. He plotted his way back to the City.

Somewhere in the distance, Orion, returning from his work at the hospice, saw the flames reaching bright white and dangerous into the sky. He dropped his things, turned, and fled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lordy I need a Beta reader. Hope this was sufficiently soppy for you guys.  
> Anyway it gets better for our two heros from now on. Hurray!


	11. Recovery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Garrett begins to heal. Corvo meets Basso.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for medical inaccuracies guys I'm kinda embarrassed cos honestly it's super hard to find info on how they treated some illnesses/injuries in the Victorian era and how much awkward weight a dude can carry in one go. I've just gone with what I can cobble together and also I'm busy with my dissertation so honestly I'm just having fun at this point. I will edit/correct when I find more time. Cheers!

Corvo cursed as Garrett nearly slipped out of his grip once again, the coat wrapped around his slender frame threatening to unravel or allow its cargo to slip out and onto the floor. He was getting increasingly tired, and although it was true that he was used to carrying large swords, weapons, other objects over long distances, especially when he had been out on missions for the Loyalists, he had never quite got used to carrying a body and its rapidly and unpredictably shifting centre of gravity. It had been fine if he was ever dragging unconscious or dead bodies short distances behind cover so they wouldn’t be discovered, but it was just that - short distances, and he never carried those bodies with the utmost care and respect that he carried Garrett with. When they moaned in pain, Corvo dropped the body and blinked away as fast as possible. When Garrett moaned, he felt a guilty tug in the pit of his stomach and tried to dampen the heavy footsteps as much as possible without sacrificing speed. There was no way he could go back to the inn, not after what happened that night a few days back, so he continued, aiming to find the clocktower and work from there. It was a long shot, but maybe he would be able to blink up the side, or build a makeshift pulley mechanism, or something else. He would work it out when he got there.

It had been an arduous journey down from the top of the chapel. The building hadn’t been designed to be anything other than straight up and down, with very few overhanging stone or wood adornments, and the ones that were creaked and groaned under Corvo’s and Garrett’s combined weight. No good. It had buckled at one point and Corvo blinked straight downwards, leaving a good few yards to fall when the range of the blink ended and when they hit the floor, Garrett let out a pained cry. Corvo’s heart clenched and he tightened his grip, and then he moved on, knowing underneath the coat, Garrett’s life was probably slowly slipping away.

He skipped around the edge of the village and knew he had made the right choice about the inn. It was surrounded by so many angry Whalers, shouting and waving lamps, the innkeeper looking shocked and defensive, holding his ground. There were too many to fight. All it took was a stray blade. Corvo wasn’t chancing it.

Miraculously, none of them had seen him sneaking his way through the fields in the back. His feet sank in the deep mud, sucking at his boots when he made to lift his feet, bathed in cool moonlight. The cold was beginning to worm its way through his coat, gradually freezing his fingers in place, wrapped around Garrett’s torso, and nipping at his toes through his boots, but on he marched, still carrying Garrett in his arms. 

The woods were a welcome respite from constantly having to dodge behind buildings and hold onto the grip of the blade as a precaution. It was almost a certainty here that nobody would see him, especially if he stuck to the shadowy cover of the trees. It was difficult due to the lack of a lamp to guide his way, and the stray roots and the branches that stuck out of the ground, hooked onto his boots and tripped him up were almost impossible to see in the darkness. It was however, somewhat comforting to know that if any stray Whaler did make their way down the path next to them, they wouldn’t be spotted, and if they were, there was ample cover to hide the body. If it was up to Corvo, he’d have murdered every last one he could get his hands on.

The forest was surprisingly quiet, save for the occasional fox or hedgehog snuffling its way across their path, and periodically Corvo had to lean Garrett against a tree and sit down briefly, rubbing warmth back into his hands and stretching his back, attempting to ward the pain from his aching muscles. It couldn’t be far now.

A small noise turned his head. Not a noise from one of the various forest creatures here. It was human. Garrett. He shifted and tried to lift his head up, grimacing in pain, eyes bloodshot and barely visible through the darkness.

“Water-”

Corvo stood up shifted to where Garrett was sat, obeying his request, pulling out the flask that he carried around on his person. Usually it was filled with wine or ale or, gods forbid, spirits, but this time, thankfully, it contained nothing but water. It was the last of what he had. He unscrewed the lid and offered it to Garrett’s lips, tipping it slightly and allowing a few drops to trickle into his mouth. The lips were dry and cracked, and it was clear that he was having difficulty in parting them for the flask, splitting and bleeding parched as they were. There was a contented sigh after a couple of moments and further shuffling as he appeared to test the temporary coat-restraint, becoming more agitated by the second. Garrett didn’t appear to recognise Corvo; whether it was a result of the darkness or what he had endured mere hours ago was anyone’s guess.

“Sleep.” Corvo commanded, and Garrett obeyed without question, letting his head roll back onto his shoulder, breath still ragged and crackling with fluid. It was definitely worse now than it had back in the underground cell, the sound hanging painful and unpleasant in the air. Although it was a good sign that Garrett was awake and able to ask for water, he was undoubtedly still in a lot of danger. Corvo downed what was left of the water in the flask and picked the thief up again, walking on through the bracken and rotten, soft dead branches. It couldn’t be far now.

They were just about to leave the woods when a figure with a lamp appeared out of the darkness, some quarter of a mile away or so. Corvo stopped still, melting back into the forest with Garrett, flattening himself against a tree, hoping that the rattling breaths from the shorter man wouldn’t give them away, hoped that the acoustic insulation of the trees was a lot better than he worried it might be. He didn’t have all that much time to move further away without snapping twigs under his feet and attracting more attention in the process.

The figure with the lamp shuffled further up the path towards the duo, looking around once, twice, over his shoulder, up above, through the trees. He was short and fat, the steps uncertain and irregular, fearful, as if he felt that he was going to be jumped at any point, and a bird - magpie- sat on his shoulder, almost reaching the top hat perched on his head, chirping softly, unperturbed by the darkness. Corvo waited for him to pass, watching him intently, blade drawn and ready to strike at any notice. It was more than possible that he was simply a resident of the village down the road, but something told Corvo that this wasn't the case. This man was looking for something - or someone. Corvo hoped against all hopes that he wasn’t in league with the Whalers. Didn’t think he would be able to deal with more of that shit tonight.

“Garrett?”

The shout initially forced Corvo to duck behind a large pine tree in fear - fear that he had been spotted, fear that something had given away his position, but he peeked his head out again upon realising what the man had shouted. If he knew Garrett’s name… maybe he was a friend?

The mask bumped against the bark of the tree as he withdrew his head, and realising that it was still affixed to his face, he pulled it off, placed Garrett and the mask on the floor next to each other among the leaves, hoping that he wouldn’t lose either of them in the night. “This’ll be the last time,” he assured the sleeping Garrett, guilt pulling at his stomach for leaving his friend on the floor so many times, before walking out to meet the stranger on the path, hand firmly clasped around the hilt of his blade. The man didn’t look like a fighter, but as Corvo had learnt from the past few years, it was always better to be safe than sorry.

The man’s eyes widened visibly and he shrunk away from Corvo as he approached out of the darkness in the woods. The bird on his shoulder ruffled its feathers defensively and croaked angrily, the movement futile. He looked like he was about to take off running, so Corvo stopped, held his hands up, and waved in an attempt to appear friendly. It might just have worked.

“Who are you?” the man said, and aggressive hint to his voice among the silence, “What do you want?”

Corvo wasn’t quite sure how to approach this. He had gone in without much of a plan, and he wasn’t exactly known for being the most socially adept man in Gristol. Killing was one thing, but persuasion was very much another, especially if it wasn’t forceful. It was an art. Jessamine had always been so much better at soft power than him. On top of that, Corvo preferred to leave any chit-chat and conversation to other people, usually it was good enough to let muscle and steel talk for him. That particular strategy would undoubtedly be ineffective in this situation.

“I heard you were calling for Garrett. I uh… I have him. Here. He’s really hurt. He’s just over there.” He jabbed a thumb behind him and into the forest.

The man looked unconvinced, although his eyes widened at the mention of Garrett’s name before he looked Corvo up and down, his voice unsure. “You want me to follow you, a stranger, into a forest, in the middle of the night?”

Corvo cursed himself inwardly and held up an index finger, instructing him to _wait_ , before hurrying back to where he remembered Garrett and the mask to be. He didn’t want to take the man’s lamp away from him as it might make him more nervous, especially as he was so much shorter, and frankly looked like less of a fighter than Corvo, but damn him if it wasn’t tricky navigating through a pitch-black forest. He found his cargo after a couple of minutes, picked him up, and carried him with speed back to where the man was waiting, still the suspicious expression set in the lines of his face.

It wasn’t suspicious for much longer. The man’s jaw dropped in horror at the state of Garrett and he craned to get a better look as Corvo lowered his body, taking care not to let his head roll back and hurt his neck. His lips had gone blue. Or grey. It was hard to tell in this light.

“What did they do to ya Garrett?” the man asked after some fussing, his hand resting on the coat and voice cracking, “What did they do?”

Corvo could now feel the rage radiating off the man in hot waves, the impatient shifting of his feet and even the bird who had gone very quiet, was telling Corvo that he had made the right decision. This man, whoever he was, would be able to help, without a doubt.

The sun was beginning to rise, the blue of the sky lightening and beginning to filter through the trees. The fire from earlier was now easily detectable from where Corvo stood, the occasional flake of ash floating down through the air and landing in his eyelashes and hair, turning them salt-and-pepper. They needed to move. The watch would be here soon if not the Whalers.

They began to walk together, Corvo holding Garrett and the man trotting along beside him. “We can’t take him to the clocktower, there’s no way we’ll get him all the way up there,” he mused, having clearly thought about this a lot more than Corvo had, “And we ain’t gonna be able to get him to the Crippled Burrick or the Rest… Name’s Basso by the way.” Corvo nodded his head in substitute for a handshake, “And this is Jenivere. She’s a pain.” he motioned to the bird sat on his shoulder, watching the path ahead intently, “Don’t feed her too much or she gets demanding.”

Basso. This must have been the man who had been sending Garrett notes, and the bird who delivered them must have been Jenivere. It all made so much sense now. Corvo nodded quietly to himself, watching his feet on the path carefully. And what a stroke of fortune, running into someone like Basso in such an unfortunate situation. But what was he to Garrett? Was he a friend? Family? He had the feeling that if pressed for details, Basso could become defensive and angry, so Corvo decided not to chance it, opting instead to wait and see if he dropped any more information on who he was.

“And you?”

Corvo had to think fast. Did he want to tell Basso who he really was, in fear of some kind of backlash? If the Thief-Taker General wanted to torture Basso for information on either Garrett or Corvo’s whereabouts, did he trust him not to squeal? He wasn’t sure. But then again, there was a very good chance that all the officials in this city knew him only as the ‘Masked Felon’. Maybe the Attano name wasn’t attached to such treacherous feelings here.

“Corvo.”

Mistake.

Basso smiled warmly at him in return, or as warmly as the situation would allow, “You’re not from ‘round here are you?”

Corvo shook his head in return, “No. I’m from Serkonos.”

“That explains it. What you doin’ here?”

This was where the real challenge lay. If Basso or Garrett found out why he was actually there, they’d probably kill him. “Merchant. Here to trade. Ran into Garrett a few days ago.” The lie didn’t come easily - he had always preferred staying silent to outright lying, preferred staying silent full stop, actually - but in this case he would have to make do, and amazingly, the lie passed. Basso didn’t seem to notice, and continued chattering away.

“I know a physician nearby. Pay ‘em well and they won’t ask too many questions. Might be perfect for Garrett, if we don’t want to be takin’ chances.”

It was true, Corvo didn’t believe this was something that Garrett could either get through himself without significant permanent harm, or using anything that he and Basso could cobble together. They had neither the materials, nor the know-how for something like that. He had, at one point, been paid to sneak into people’s homes and murder them, which would have ideally involved keeping it quiet, avoiding the guards, all that jazz. Whatever Havelock had told him to do. In reality, he had been a louder character, preferring to enter the fray guns blazing, ready to chop anyone who came near him. Corvo Attano: the loudest man in Dunwall. The lack of a relevant skill set made him an inappropriate character for burgling doctors surgeries in search of tools and drugs he wouldn’t be able to identify. Basso was similar: heavy on his feet, loud, trained in safecracking over larceny and pickpocketing. Unsuitable.

Garrett had a stash of gold more than ample to pay this physician to coax him back out of death’s arms, Corvo knew it, but Basso said he could afford the bribery money. They both agreed to carry Garrett to safety, and have Basso supervise him while Corvo returned to the Burrick and retrieved as much gold as they needed. Foolproof.

They were entering the City. The light was getting ever brighter. If even one guard rounded the corner and recognised Garrett’s thin face and dark eyes, they would be done for. Corvo rolled Garrett’s face towards his chest, trying to make it less blatantly obvious that he was carrying the Master Thief. If luck was on their side, most of the Watch would be out in the outskirts, helping to sort out the fire that had engulfed the shack and portions of the surrounding forest, but there was no guarantee. When was there ever such a thing as a guarantee?

The office was nearby. A small, drab building shrouded in ivy and shadows, tucked into some insignificant corner along with terraces of housing. It would be impossible to identify if not for the aged wooden plaque next to the door, barely legible:

_Shalebridge Accountancy Firm  
Taking Clients Now_

Basso knocked on the door, looking furtively from left to right, hoping to spot any stray Watch guards before they spotted him. Corvo noticed that his hand was gripped tightly around something small and shiny - likely a dagger of some kind, or another small blade - deep in his pocket. Not good for much here, apart from peace of mind. He waited.

Corvo was just about ready to suggest they moved off somewhere else when faint footsteps floated in the cold air, the door handle turned, and a short man with cropped grey hair stood in front of them, still in his sleepwear, face contorted into a scowl.

“Basso! What sort of time do you call this? I was just-” he spotted Corvo out of the corner of his eye and froze, before his eyes drifted downwards to the thief wrapped in the coat, white face barely visible. Standing up straight, he drew the gown around himself and sighed. “I’ll get the bag.”

Basso and Corvo followed the physician into the building, dirty feet tramping on carpets that had long since faded into the darkness of the hall. It was beyond clear that the place hadn’t been properly cleaned in decades. The air was musty, oppressive, dust motes dancing in the air, the electric lamps affixed to the walls blinking every few seconds. The place appeared to Corvo as seedy at best, especially considering it was a place of healing. Obviously illicit. Corvo wondered briefly if the physician even had a medical license. It wouldn’t surprise him if he didn’t. Usually in Dunwall, these dirty back-alley surgeries specialised more in organ theft rather than repair, the poor bastards who had been hauled in unwillingly by paid thugs leaving under the cover of a sheet or tied in a sack, many pounds lighter and none the wiser thanks to terrifyingly effective new anaesthetics.

Basso touched him on the arm, bringing Corvo back to the present, signalling to him to continue walking onwards, to follow the man down the corridor and left into a room that was not only cleaner than the hall, but much more brightly lit, or it seemed that way from where they were standing. They passed another dark room with sheets nailed over the windows, a reclining chair sat facing a smaller cushioned one, smelling of smoke and alcohol and formaldehyde. Candles burnt in each corner, bookcases lining the papered walls. In the next room, the one that Basso followed the physician into, there was a long wooden table sat in the centre, darkened stains apparent over the edges of the surface. Corvo was willing to bet anything that it was blood. Blood that had been cleaned, but had seeped into the cracks of the wood and left stains. Surrounded by chairs with adjustable heights. His stomach clenched again as the doctor motioned for him to unwrap and then lie Garrett on the table. The brightest light in the room was another electrical lamp, which was situated directly above the table, the light cold and harsh and white. Dead. It illuminated Garrett’s body and laid bare all the abuse he had endured over the past couple of days: all the bruises, all the lacerations, all the bones that had very clearly broken and shifted beneath the skin. The black, patchy hair with a couple of silver strands. The eyes. He wasn’t shivering any more, and the skin wasn’t as cold to the touch, but instead it was clammy and cool, a thin sheen of sweat covering his torso and face.

Corvo shivered before picking up the coat again and wrapping it around himself. The warmth was little consolation.

“Not our usual time of meeting, eh?” Basso said in an attempt to lighten the mood. It fell flat, the silence in the room tightened around them, and Corvo looked away from Basso abashed. The doctor was already studying Garrett’s broken body, eyes running backwards and forwards over each and every bone, every darkened bruise, from the toes all the way up to the head. He leant on the table resolutely for a moment, before straightening up, standing back, and running a hand over his mouth and nose. He didn’t look happy.

“Quite a case you’ve brought me.”

“We don’t have the money on us now but Corvo here’s about to go and get it. He won’t be long.” Basso looked over at Corvo expectantly, who nodded in agreement. The physician didn’t look up, but instead frowned down into the occupied table

“If I didn’t know you so well Basso, I’d throw him out. I’ll work on him while you go.”

Basso dipped his head in thanks and swept Corvo out of the room to talk to him in private. It was a shock for Corvo to move back out of the bright light of the theatre and into the dingy darkness of the hall, and he pinched the bridge of his nose, a headache beginning to thump there from the exhaustion of the last 24 hours, the need for rest, and the ache in his shoulders from carrying Garrett. He wasn’t a heavy man, far from it, but that extra weight had taken its toll on Corvo, especially as he had been so awkward to carry. He stretched, feeling the soft _crick_ in his neck and the sweet release as the muscles underneath it unravelled, sighing. He didn’t feel completely ready to keep going with whatever task Basso had for him next, but he felt a damn sight more prepared. Sleep could wait.

“I’m gonna stay here, look after Garrett,” Basso began, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder back into the theatre, “Dunno if you know where the Burrick is, but it’s in Stonemarket. Hard to miss, it’s a pub. Bit grubby. But better than sending someone to steal from my own thief, I don’t think Garrett would ever forgive me. Ask the bartender, say it’s from me. It’s an emergency, he’s a good friend of mine.”

He let out a pained laugh followed by a hacking cough, the worry in his eyes still poorly hidden. He trusted Corvo, didn’t have a choice and both of them knew it. It was either that, or the unthinkable.

“Take this,” Basso said, handing Corvo a map of the City that looked jumbled and confused in his hands, as well as a small apricot tart, “Not much but hopefully it’ll help.”

Corvo nodded at Basso, smiling, before turning on his heel and marching back towards the door, closing it gently behind him so as not to make a noise. The air outside was cold, damp, smelled like engine oil and honeydew, the spiderwebs beading in the morning light, collecting pale pools of sun. It had quite possibly been one of the longest nights of his life. Was about to become even longer.

He pulled the mask down over his face and blinked onto the ledge above, ensuring no passing citizen had been around to witness it. The worst thing that could happen right now would be for someone to ask questions. Only when he was safely nestled in the dark cover of the building did he allow himself to sit down for a mere moment, legs dangling off the edge, picking at the tart, letting the sugary taste bring him back to the days of Jessamine’s rule, of the nights out on private balconies in the palace, sipping champagne, watching the fireworks and constellations. It had been a risk, one that maybe a few too many people had picked up on (Treavor Pendleton’s voice still rang clear in his ears: “Everyone knows you were screwing the Empress”), but largely the times had been peaceful. It was something he’d been working hard on letting go. He ungripped his hand. Another bad habit.

Having finished the tart, and rested his legs for all of five minutes, he stood back up, swaying. Time to get a move on. Garrett needed him. He affixed the mask back to his face, allowing time for the lenses to adjust and attune to his own eyes before he turned a corner, melting into the night along with the foxes and rats. With luck, thought Corvo, the Watch would still be tending to the fire on the outskirts of the city, too busy to bother patrolling the streets, too busy to hold the likes of him up. Realistically, saving for the occasional slip or, at the very worst, getting lost in the Eternal City, it was going to be a quiet journey. He knew it.

\----------------------

Basso sat in the corner of the room, silent, allowing the physician to do whatever he was going to do. How long he had been sat there he wasn’t sure, but whether it was one hour or five, the outcome was the same. The physician spoke to himself in clipped murmurs, his footsteps light on the tiled floor, fingers deft as they sewed wounds shut, bandaged them, straightened, and splinted broken fingers and periodically checked Garrett for responses. Basso assumed that the slow and calm work was a sign of good fortune, that maybe it wasn’t as bad as he had initially thought, but when Garrett had gasped in pain more than once, he had to leave the room, wringing his hands. He paced back and forth, ignoring the unpleasant cracking noises that were coming from the theatre, and vowed to find whoever had done this and _make them pay_ for everything that they’d done. Make them wish they’d never been born.

He returned to the room after a moment of collecting himself to see the physician setting aside a used scalpel and a bowl. “Nasty infection he has here,” the physician said, gesturing to the leg and looking Basso in the eyes for the first time in hours, “Should he have come to me earlier, it would be easier to treat. Thankfully it’s not too deep.”

Basso nodded, unsmiling, “Dunno why he didn’t tell me earlier. Complete pain to get anything outta him as is.”

“Luckily that seems to be the worst of it,” he continued, counting off on his fingers, “Broken ribs, fractured arm, three fingers also broken, missing fingernails, all of it, it will heal. It will take time, but it will heal. Fortunately no punctured lungs, but some fluid present. Keep an eye on it, let me know if it gets worse.” He pressed a large-ish bottle of milky-white poppy-based liquid and a smaller one of some other unnamed medicine, “Make sure he’s taking these. Whenever he’s in pain for the poppy and once a day for that.” he pointed at the clear bottle, "It'll stop the leg from getting any worse."

Basso sighed in relief, but tensed again as the doctor pulled a bottle of foul-smelling liquid from the cupboard again and doused the freshly-debrided wound on his leg with it before wrapping it firmly in bandages. Garrett, still out cold, let another whine slip from between his teeth. Basso looked at the physician, pleading in his eyes. “There nothin’ you can do about that?”

The doctor shrugged, pulling a small, round glass bottle from one of the cupboards. “It’s obviously disturbing you Basso,” he said, carefully drawing some of the liquid into a silver syringe and, asking Basso to hold Garrett’s arm still on the off-chance that he did flinch at the nipping pain, ejected the contents into the crook of Garrett’s pale arm. His face gradually settled from pained to blank as the drug worked its way through his system, the crinkles at the sides of his eyes softening under the hard light and Basso sighed. It had only taken until now for him to realise that he was holding his breath in anxiety. Garrett was almost a son to him at this point, despite being only around ten years younger than himself, and he felt just as protective. Garrett had grown up without a family, had escaped the orphanage at which he had failed to make friends and eventually found his way to Basso, who liked to think he was, along with being a professional ally, something of a guiding figure. It hurt him to see Garrett hurt. He sat down again, pinching the bridge of his nose, the stress that had been slowly building beginning to dissipate at the prospect of a full recovery for Garrett.

The physician left the room, cleaning his hands, and returned briefly with a small glass of clear spirits, which Basso downed gratefully, grimacing at the sting of the alcohol as it hit the back of his throat. Strong stuff, even for him, and he practically spent his entire life drinking in taverns. He sat down at the edge of the room again, and after a while the physician left, shutting the door behind him, allowing Basso to accompany his friend while Corvo retrieved the payment. He heard muffled conversations from the corridor and the periodic creaks of the front door as the day wore on and the doctor let occasional patients into the clinic, and Basso slowly fell asleep to the sound of Garrett’s soft, slow breathing.


	12. Journey Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Garrett wakes up. Basso is mad. Corvo wishes he could do more.

It was maybe midday when Corvo returned from the Crippled Burrick, the sun surprisingly warm on his back compared with how cold the morning had been. He wasn’t entirely surprised to find both Garrett and Basso asleep, one sat on an uncomfortable-looking chair, snoring and shuffling with his arms crossed over his chest, and the other laid flat on his back, covered in a grey blanket, pale and still. His boots were unexpectedly loud on the worn carpet, and his heart constricted for a moment when he saw the state of Garrett, momentarily believing him to have died until he saw the slow rise and fall of his chest. Upon further inspection, he found that some colour had returned to his cheeks, and the pained grimace and sweat that had been plastered to his face that morning had been replaced with a relaxed but blank expression, which was as good a sign as any considering the situation.

Shutting the door behind him, he began circling the table in the middle of the room, ignoring the gnawing exhaustion behind his eyes. Garrett’s face was gaunt, it was clear now that the sides of his face weren’t shielded by neither hood nor scarf nor the veil of shadowy night, one arm lay across his chest tied up in a sling, two of the long, slim fingers splinted together and the missing fingernails revealed, painfully raw and bruised, a stark contrast next to the rest of his pale hand. Corvo hoped that the fact that the other arm was still tucked underneath the blanket meant that it had been spared from the brutal treatment, along with the rest of his body, but doubt lingered in the back of his mind. He dared to let his hand drift across the blanket for a moment before he froze, sensing another person’s gaze.

He looked up, withdrew his hand sharply, found Basso had woken and was staring at him from the other side of the room, a suspicious frown set in the creases of his face, eyebrows cocked and mouth pulled into a lopsided grimace before he broke into a grin, obviously pretending he had not seen the private moment. His eyes flicked momentarily to the tattoo on his hand before returning to his face.

“Didn’t hear you coming back. Trouble?”

The tone was almost too friendly. Almost too genuine. Corvo drew back into himself defensively.

“No problems. All paid off.” He heard the words in his head as clipped, short. He wondered if Basso heard the same. Didn’t know if he’d intended on sounding like that. He stifled a yawn.

“So now we just gotta get old lazy bones here home.”

Corvo nodded, massaging the Outsider mark subconsciously, rubbing his thumb over the back of his hand, feeling the soft electrical tingle of the Void magic and ignoring the side glances Basso was clearly giving him. “Has he woken?” he beckoned towards Garrett’s sleeping body.

Basso shook his head in response. “Nah. Not yet anyway. Just gotta wait until he heals up a bit I guess.”

Corvo grunted. His mind reached back to how he had been feeling this time yesterday, how he had been planning his escape, hadn’t had to worry about whalers or sick thieves. Only part of him wanted to escape and head back to Dunwall now, but that was the rational part of his mind, the part that said _fuck it all, go back and make sure Emily’s alright_ , but the curious, passionate, caring remainder of his brain told him to stay for a little while longer, to make sure Garrett was healed and safe before he left. It told him that Emily could wait and the professional guidance of her tutors and carers would suffice until he made it back, and that Garrett could be a valuable ally to the Empire in the future. It wasn’t strictly the ‘done thing’ - to employ the help of professional criminals when doing official work, and it would be a national scandal if anyone found out, but Corvo was significantly more comfortable with the prospect nowadays. Whatever gets the job done, and who knew what they would need stealing in the future?

So his mind was made up. He would stay for a little while longer. Spend a little while making sure Garrett didn’t hurt himself or do anything stupid. Help him adjust. It was really that simple. He looked back to Garrett.

“Don’t think he’ll be happy though when he-”

Basso’s voice was interrupted by a protracted sigh coming from the table in the centre of the room. Both he and Garrett turned sharply towards the thief, who had opened his eyes, but was squinting against the harsh light hovering above him, scowling, hand working weakly against the splints affixed to his fingers. He blinked several times whilst the other two hurried to the bedside, restrained questions bubbling in their throats. Corvo could see Garrett’s brain whirring into action as his pupils contracted and his lips parted, queries prepared and laid out neatly before he relented and made do with another sigh, drunkenly freed and raised his good arm to cover his face and pressed into his eyes, avoiding placing pressure on the fingers that were either broken or had missing nails, eyebrows furrowed, dark blue and purple bruises contrasting sharply against the pale wrinkles on his face. He looked like he was trying to hold down bile. 

His forearm was covered in several deep lacerations, some stitched up tight, some smaller ones left to heal out in the open. As the blanket shifted down past his chest, Corvo found there were cuts there too. He saw red and clenched his jaw tightly, feeling his heart skip.

He reached underneath the table when he was sure Garrett wasn’t looking and pulled out a silver bowl for him, seeing his grey-but-nearly-green complexion, hanging onto it dutifully. He was sure he had seen a shadow of terror cross Garrett’s face before he had awoken properly, but all that was gone by now, replaced with closed eyes and a resigned expression beneath the hand he had pressed to his eyes. 

“I feel like shit.” 

“You don’t need to tell me,” Basso began before Corvo had even formulated a reply in his mind, “What the hell did you think you were doing? Why the _fuck_ didn’t you tell me something was wrong?”

Garrett didn’t reply but instead allowed his eyes to drift over to Corvo, before taking in his surroundings for the first time, glancing at each corner of the room for second before coming to rest on the stippled ceiling. There was a moment where he closed his eyes, and Corvo believed he had fallen asleep again, before he mumbled and rolled onto his side, placing his hands on the table at each of his sides and pushed, slipped twice before sitting up, tipped forward so that he was about to place his feet on the floor. Corvo and Basso moved simultaneously, blocking him from moving any further and Corvo authoritatively placed a firm-but-gentle hand on his chest and pushed him back down, taking care to shield his head from the bench, before a better idea emerged in his head. He took his coat off once again, rolled it up into a makeshift pillow, and slid it underneath Garrett’s head, who looked up at him in what Corvo interpreted as appreciation. Basso, however, saw very clearly how stiff Garrett was against the gesture, the slight downward turn of the mouth interpreted incorrectly by Corvo, instead indicating to Basso that Garrett was not only hurting, but felt humiliated, and quite clearly wanted to get out of there without any fuss. But Basso knew that wouldn’t happen until he was perfectly satisfied that he could get Garrett home in one piece. He mustered up his best ‘disappointed parent’ voice, and prepared to lambast him.

“I’m serious Garrett. Why the hell didn’t you tell me about your leg?” That comment earnt him a deeper scowl and a clenched fist, but he continued, ignoring Corvo’s awkward expression, “I’m here to help you, and you just won’t be helped. God knows… am I doin’ something wrong? Something you don’t like? Garrett, you need to tell me or you’re gonna end up killing me.”

Garrett ignored the pleas and continued staring up into the ceiling. He didn’t like being talked to in this way, like he was some kind of child who couldn't handle himself, and especially not by his own fence. He was always so combative when Garrett did something he didn’t approve of. It was insulting to him and everything he’d learnt; he replied instead through gritted teeth, head still woozy and scrambled from the painkillers, voice slurred and nasally, “Basso, I was just trying to get the job done. It’s not my fault the client was a rogue job.” 

Basso _tsked_ and rolled his eyes, crossing his arms sullenly. He knew full well that most of this shitshow wasn’t, in fact, Garrett’s fault, that it had been a culmination of unfortunate circumstances and poor decisions by all parties including himself, which he knew he would be thoroughly beating himself up over later.

“What actually happened in there?”

“Can I at least sit up first?” His mouth was dry and tasted foul but he ignored it, hoping it would dissipate soon enough.

Basso paused and looked at Corvo, who shrugged. He didn’t see the harm in sitting him in a chair as long as it was controlled and he was properly supervised. They allowed him lie on his back for a few more minutes, just enough to ensure he wasn’t going to vomit or pass out again before relenting. Taking the utmost care and attention not to disturb his stitches, Corvo guided Garrett back into a sitting position, feeling him flinch violently at his hands on his back, and hooked his arms underneath him, testing the weight before smoothly lifting him into the air. Garrett, surprised by this sudden weightlessness, gripped onto Corvo’s arm with his functional hand and watched the floor sail beneath him, the air warm and comfortable on his skin compared to the awful, cold, darkness of the cell. He had been dressed in not much more than a linen shirt and a pair of shorts that were more than too large for him, and dwarfed his body, making him appear skeletal, magnifying the shadows cast along his body. At least it was warm and comfortable, and when flashbacks from the cell hit him - the iron stink of blood, or the scrape of table wheels on flagstone, or the snapping of his own bones - Garrett concentrated hard on how scratchy and ill-fitting the material felt on his skin compared to the leathers, and it grounded him in the present. It wasn’t much, but it would have to do for now.

Corvo gently deposited Garrett in one of the padded wooden chairs at the side of the room and, withdrawing his arms, tucked the grey blanket around him, ensuring he would stay warm and comfortable. Garrett nodded without smiling in response and coughed, the crackling in his lungs making a vengeful return. Corvo froze, arms held out in preparation for the worst, but instead Garrett slumped backwards, falling into the chair, grimacing in discomfort and embarrassment but not in any tangible danger. Both Basso and Corvo pulled up their own chairs next to Garrett and sat down, watching the warm afternoon light slowly slide across the floor while Garrett basked, closing his eyes and allowing his teeth and fist to unclench, finally looking at peace for the first time since he had woken up.

“So what happened?” Basso was the first one to break the silence, the question hanging heavy and tentative in the afternoon air.

Garrett slowly opened his eyes after a while and replied with an unexpectedly characteristic smoothness, “Basso, you know as much as I do. I got ambushed in that chapel, and after that-” He gestured ahead, shrugging, “Don’t remember much. Seem to remember they didn’t much like that book we discussed though.”

Basso stared at him, nonplussed. “Garrett, I heard that the chapel went up in flames. One of my thieves, Clara, told me. Worried it might be somethin’ to do with you. Wanted to make sure you were alright but couldn’t think how else.”

Following the terse silence that Garrett’s non-answer left the three in, Corvo spoke up, cautiously approaching the subject, knowing that he had to temper the information he chose to provide to Garrett and especially Basso in case they became suspicious of him. “It was me, actually. Spotted something going on in the chapel, ran into someone unfriendly holding an oil lamp,” he paused, and then gestured imitating flames, “Whoosh.”

Together the three of them began to piece together a picture of what had happened the night before, slowly uncovering the chain of events that had led to Garrett’s awakening in the clinic, only occasionally stopping to allow Basso to get him poppy-infused tea. The usual suspicion of drinks miraculously wasn’t present and Garrett knocked it down in less than a minute, indifferent to the temperature and it slowly made him woozy. He was still so thirsty, the headache thumping behind his eyes mercilessly, the ache creeping back into his broken bones and bruised body. His eyelids drooped with exhaustion. Wanted to go home. Wanted to sleep. He pressed his fingers into his eyes again, ignoring Basso and Corvo sat beside him, ceased to reply in his exhaustion and eventual disinterest, wondering if they trusted him enough to let him walk yet.

“Where’s my stuff?”

The silence that followed told him everything. He had suspected that this would be the case, but nonetheless it didn’t really prepare him for the answer.

“Garrett, they burnt it. I got the bow and quiver and the blackjack, but everything else they burnt.”

His shoulders slumped forwards, his head dipping, a sigh escaping his lips. It was some small comfort that Corvo had managed to rescue the bow, but the leathers… They would take him weeks, if not months to replace, and until then, he wasn’t able to work. There was another problem too: one that sat unpleasantly in the back of his brain like a dark cloud and wrapped itself around his windpipe. It actually made him sad. He didn’t know whether it was because he had grown attached to his gear, as if it was part of his very being, or if it was more of a symbolic attachment than a literal one. They had killed part of him in that jail cell. Taken his things, stuff he had spent hours making. Burnt it. Prevented him from working. A shiver ran down his spine as a couple more fragmented memories jostled to life in his brain: they had been planning on murdering him and burning the evidence. And nobody except Basso would have noticed. Even then, he would have never been found; the people who had captured and tortured him so thoroughly clearly weren’t about to take chances with corpses. He pictured himself lying in an unmarked and shallow grave, cold, unseeing, dead. Something forced its way out of his throat and he forcibly stifled a hitch in his breath. _You can’t be fucking angry here,_ he scolded himself, forcing himself to stare at part of the wallpaper that had peeled away, _wait until you get home._

Thankfully, nobody else in the room seemed to have noticed, and they were interrupted by the physician who paused and looked over at the three in the corner of the room after finding Garrett was no longer lying on the table.

“Nice to see you’re awake,” he said dryly, approaching Garrett who flinched again as he studied the stitches on his arm a little too roughly before standing up and announcing that Garrett was fine to leave as long as he was kept under close supervision and relegated to bed rest until he was well enough to walk. Basso nodded and followed him out of the room, and Corvo heard him mentioning Garrett’s name before they shut it and they were left in silence together. Garrett, for some reason, refused to look him in the eyes. A few minutes passed of muffled conversation between Basso and the physician and the light in the room dimmed to a soft gold before Garrett finally spoke. The words sounded choked, a nasty taste on Garrett’s tongue, as if he would rather be saying or _doing_ anything else in the world.

“Thank you. I would have died if you weren’t there.”

But still he didn’t look him in the eyes.

Corvo shrugged. “I would want someone to do the same for me.” And it was true.

Garrett grunted, seemingly unconvinced by Corvo’s answer, and together they sat there in silence, watching the dust dancing through the air. It wasn’t long before Basso returned all hustle and bustle, clucking over Garrett like some kind of mother hen.

“Ready to go?”

“Get me the hell out of here Basso.”

Basso simply chuckled and moved to help Garrett up, pulling him groaning to his feet, requesting assistance from Corvo with nothing more than a pointed look, who took over and hooked his arm firmly around Garrett’s chest and supported him out the door, away from the bright light of the theatre, away from the silence that pressed itself upon the ears of anyone who entered and the anxiety of not knowing whether Garrett would make it. He was still very weak, Corvo could tell in the way that he walked, knees buckling if he was left unsupported for too long, short gasps of breath hurriedly stifled when he stumbled and landed wrong on one of his feet. There was an edge of… something in the way that he moved. Was it reluctance, or embarrassment, or something else? Corvo knew that now wasn’t the time to ask and he simply followed Basso through the filthy side streets and down dark passageways and hidden paths that would be impossible to spot without the inside knowledge. Basso looked back on occasion, checking that Garrett was still with them. And he was, but barely. Whether it was through exhaustion or pain, Corvo had found himself supporting more and more of the thief’s weight as they walked and now he just hung there, breathing shallow and sharp, only periodically raising one of his good legs to try and take a step, the bad one trailing along the floor behind him.

He had tired rather quickly, but that was neither surprising, nor worrying. All he needed was to get some sleep, and so did Corvo. His eyelids burned when he blinked, and he found himself rubbing them more often than he knew he should. It had been thirty-six hours since he’d had any rest at all.

“Corvo,” began Basso, after observing Garrett worriedly, “I can’t climb up that clock tower, can’t climb back down, but you can. Are you able to get him up there? I’d take him to the Burrick if I could, but I’ve been havin’ eh… problems with some clients. It don’t feel safe to let him stay there if there’s any sorta risk.” he grimaced and cocked his head sympathetically.

Corvo nodded blankly in response. He didn’t know what the problems Basso had been having were, not sure he wanted to, but he agreed anyway to take Garrett and watch him for a few days in the tower, just enough to make sure he was able to look after himself and get around before heading back to Dunwall. Easy.

They split up at the base of the clocktower, Basso having shown Corvo the shortest and safest route to the building, ensuring that no Watch guards were patrolling the area or posed a danger to the pair. Clearly they were still occupied with the chapel fire, as mercifully, they ran into only three patrolling pairs on the way there (who were quickly dodged by ducking into side streets), and the roads were relatively quiet and free of other criminals, petty or otherwise. It was like all the fates had aligned to allow them a safe journey.

Basso stopped Corvo just as he was beginning to plan his route up to the top, staring him in the eyes as Corvo’s head followed the path from the top of the clocktower down to the base, and then slid across to meet Basso, “I trust you with Garrett but to be absolutely clear, if he gets hurt I’ll slit your fucking throat, a’ight?”, then he paused looking around, pressed a large-ish bottle of poppy milk and a smaller, crystal bottle with a clear liquid into his hands, before pausing. “Make sure he takes the poppy as he needs it and the other one once a day,” he said, before leaving Garrett still unconscious in Corvo’s arms, and the latter watching Basso retreat quizzically. Both of them knew that Basso wouldn’t even physically be able to reach Corvo’s neck to do any stabbing, but the threat was there all the same. It had been a terse exit but Corvo wasn’t easily perturbed by such behaviour - even thought it understandable under the circumstances. In the short amount of time he’d seen Basso and Garrett interacting, he had realised that it went a lot deeper than simply ‘fence-and-worker’, and the fact that he didn’t know anything about how Basso viewed Garrett (or vice-versa) went without question in that moment. 

He looked back around at the clocktower, tearing his eyes away from the shadow where Basso had disappeared into the night. There really was no other way about it. Corvo was going to have to climb this thing carrying Garrett. It was dangerous, not for himself as much as his cargo, considering he wouldn’t be able to break his own fall if anything did go significantly wrong, and both the loss of the use of one arm and the inevitably rapidly-shifting centre of mass, both caused by Garrett, would make things all the more dangerous. Corvo had been able to blink up the side of the clocktower fine so far, although he was still trying to work out the intricacies of the brickwork, find the rocks that were jutting out just far enough to hold on to and calculated which pieces of wood weren’t so rotten that they would simply give way underneath his fingers, but climbing it was another thing completely. Blinking reduced the total work to get to the top by 90%. Climbing was a whole new can of worms.

He had an idea.

Gently resting Garrett down at the side of the clocktower, and ensuring they were still out of sight of any rogue patrolling guards, Corvo gently patted the side of Garrett’s face until he woke up again, eyes bloodshot and confused. “Are you able to hold onto my shoulders for five minutes?”

There was a moment before the slow and slurred answer came, little more than a muffled “Mm-hm” and a nod of the head, before Corvo picked him up again and helped Garrett onto his feet, swinging him around into a piggyback that held remarkably well regarding the state of the two. For such a lithe man, he was strong, even when sick. That at least solved the problem of the unusable arm. The stones were exceedingly difficult to get a grip on, but between Corvo’s careful trial-and-error method and Garrett’s occasional hints on the best stones to grab, they made it up the side of the clocktower safely, without incident, and without any of the Watch noticing the hunched silhouette flattened to the side of the building. Really, it was a miracle that, in all the years Garrett had lived here, none of the Watch had caught him entering or leaving his home, thought Corvo. A fall from that height, even if landed well, would cause serious injuries: broken bones, shattered knees, snapped tendons, injuries that would put an end to his career in less than a second, and would prevent him from ever reaching his home again. A fall landed badly would mean immediate death, no ifs or buts. Corvo wondered what Garrett would do when he inevitably became too old, or became too injured, to climb the tower. Would he just find a new home? Did he even expect to live to that point?

Corvo grabbed onto the windowsill, thanking the gods that he had left the window open when he had left for the docks a few days previously and pulled himself in groaning, Garrett still dutifully hanging on around his neck. They both tumbled in through the window and laid on the floor panting, Corvo doing his level best to catch his breath and Garrett trying not to wail in pain, now most of the medication had worn off. Although a short climb, it had been physically taxing on Garrett. His injuries had been repeatedly bumped and one or two of the stitches around his shoulder had split, leaving a thin trickle of blood winding its way down his chest below the rough-hewn shirt, the warmth tickling his ribcage. The arm that had been broken felt like it was seizing: it had been up near Corvo’s shoulder, trying to help support his own weight (although the other arm had done more than most of the heavy lifting) which was probably exactly what he shouldn’t have been doing. Needs must. Garrett hoped against all hopes that he hadn’t damaged it further, that it wouldn’t mean that he would be spending however many more weeks up here doing fuck all, waiting for it to fix itself. He wasn’t usually a man who took chances lightly, but nothing compelled him into risky behaviour like having nothing to do for weeks on end. Corvo had not appeared to notice Garrett’s shoulder and laid outstretched on the floor next to the thief, chest rising and falling heavily against the strain of both the climb and the physical taxation of what had happened over the last day and a half, his hair having fallen around his head in a dark, fuzzy halo. Garrett wasn’t sure if he had actually fallen asleep when the breathing slowed to nothing but a quiet tremble of his lips and he failed to respond when nudged by Garrett’s foot. 

Garrett decided that he would be fine to take care of himself by now. The question would be getting rid of Corvo.

He was wide awake at this point, biting his lip, fighting against his own lungs threatening to expel another whine. He had spent a lot of time and energy in the past preventing anyone else from seeing him in a vulnerable state, not only found it unprofessional and considered it a potential compromise of his own work, but he was embarrassed. Embarrassed of what others might think. He considered himself a staunch professional, one who didn’t make mistakes and wanted others to see him in the same light, to fear and respect him, so now, when all of that had been taken off him in one fell swoop, he felt a little more than discouraged. While Corvo was still here with him, that discomfort, that weakness would be extended indefinitely, it didn’t matter how well his bones knitted back together or how quickly the bruises disappeared. He was uncomfortable when Basso saw his weaknesses, as much as he insisted that all he wanted was to ensure Garrett’s safety and ‘ _every man had a weakness_ ’ and all that crap, but that was just about as much as he would tolerate. He was now at the mercy of the man he had tied up and refused to let go. A pang of fear rose in his throat. Not only that, but now Corvo knew where he lived. If he didn’t actually have friendly intentions after all, Garrett was completely and utterly unable to defend himself.

He wanted to hide, to run, to get out of the clocktower and never return. He climbed back to his feet with great difficulty, looked out of the window and down at the ground, the tall brickwork stretching out, standing between him and freedom. He was totally isolated. Couldn’t even leave his house unless Corvo agreed to helping him out and down. He gripped the edge of the sill, his knuckles whitening, mouth dry. He couldn’t even blackjack and tie him up again with only one functional hand. 

He turned back to the room and gripped the linen shirt with his bad hand best he could, and pinched the bridge of his nose with the other, forcing himself to breathe normally, to inhale in long, slow pulls rather than the shallow, staccato gasps he was rapidly descending into. He couldn’t allow himself to lose control, no more than he already had.

Recognising that maybe it was the trauma of the past couple of days that had caused the catastrophic thought processes, he stopped for a moment and rationalised with himself. He had spent one night already with Corvo roaming free in the tower, and nothing had happened. Nothing of note had gone missing, he had not woken up with a blade to his throat and heavy demands pressed to his ears, so what was there to worry about, really?

“Everything,” Garrett said quietly to himself, the hysterical part of his mind winning promptly, heading to get himself down the stairs. If Corvo had unsavoury intentions then it was a good idea to put a floor between them - it would give him time to react if anything bad happened. The stairs, however, were an unexpected challenge. His legs shook so violently that when he took the first step, he had to grip onto the banister, fearing that a fall could quite easily kill him. He collected himself before trying again. The second step was even worse.

He hated this. He could not think of anything worse than not even being able to get around in his own home. His throat clenched and he stifled another cry, feeling exhaustion closing in on him again. Garrett fought it off, staring at the ten-or-so steps left stretching out in front of him. _It should be easy_ , he thought, _I should be able to take these stairs three at a time._ He had not never had this much trouble getting down his own stairs, not even when he had been drunk and in agony from debriding infections or sewing up his own wounds, so why was it such a problem now? What was the difference? Sweat trickled down his brow, he felt the room get far too hot, far too quickly and he had what felt like less than a second to sit back down on the steps before the room tipped on its axis and threw him unceremoniously from the stairs. 

There was a flash of bright white and blue in front of him before he collided with a huge, firm, blue-coated figure and passed out cold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Clocktower climbing scene because _fuck_ physics and _fuck_ biology ┌( ಠ‿ಠ)┘


	13. High as Balls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Garrett is being difficult. Corvo finally gets some sleep (but he has to fight for it). Basso has unpleasant visitors. We meet some new faces.

Corvo braced before Garrett hit him in the chest. He had only a split second after blinking in front of the thief to prepare himself, bend his knees slightly, hold onto the banister with one hand and put the other out to the side in case Garrett slipped around him and damaged himself on the floor or the stairs.

He watched as Garrett’s body fell.

_Thump._

The impact was a lot heavier than he had expected. Even with the full half-second of preparation and Garrett’s slight frame he reeled, nearly losing his balance for a moment and taking a step down, clenching the thief’s body to his chest to avoid letting him drop to the ground like a sack of potatoes. It had been a rude awakening, seeing Garrett taking a step down the stairs and juddering so violently, but his brain hadn’t really noticed what was happening and sprung into action until he was actively falling. There had not been much warning: a low moan and a small sway was all that Corvo usually needed - he had choked so many people out that it was now second nature when someone was about to drop - which he was thankful for. He praised the Outsider for his blink ability for a second, gathering himself before once again hitching Garrett up and carrying him to the bed. 

“You’re going to have to stop passing out on me buddy.” he said to Garrett, knowing that there was no chance what he said was being understood. There was a low whine of acknowledgement and a feeble wriggle from his cargo. Corvo ignored the protestations and continued hauling him to the other side of the room, where he set him down on the mattress and began sorting out the tangled sheets.

Corvo could tell just by watching Garrett’s face that he was more than a little bit embarrassed. Still recovering from the sudden fall, his face went from the palest white to a bright pink, contorting into an angry scowl, clumsily retrieving his good hand from on top of his chest and bringing it, shaking violently, to his face where he rubbed his cheek in frustration. “I didn’t mean--”

“Don’t worry about it.” Corvo, being so tired, had little to offer apart from that. Had no other words to soothe him with. It would have to wait until he got some rest.

Garrett didn’t appear to pick up on this and continued struggling weakly against the sheets that were tucked around him, holding him firmly to the bed so that he wouldn’t fall out or thrash and hurt himself, to which Corvo responded by tightening the sheets around him and blowing the candle on the side table out, hoping that Garrett would get the message.

Was this what Garrett was reduced to? From being the most feared and infamous thief in the Eternal City to being tucked into bed by some random guy he’d only met days ago? He stared Corvo in the eyes, who was just admiring his handiwork and kicked again drunkenly, disturbing the sheets. Maybe the anger was misplaced. He felt Corvo’s fingers tighten around the sheet and saw his jaw clench in the moonlight before he stood up and turned away, simply bidding him good night. Maybe he had gone a bit far that time. It wasn’t that he was angry at Corvo, far from it, he hadn’t really done anything to wrong him (yet), but he was sick of the situation (and it had only just begun) and still disturbed by severe pain, shortening his already quick temper. He scowled off into the distance, feeling guilt tugging on his guts insistently, before he relented, allowing the guilt to override his frustration.

“I’m sorry.”

Corvo, who was already halfway up the stairs, turned. Garrett could see just how exhausted he was in the way he walked, his jaw slack and hair tousled, shirt untucked and dark circles hanging underneath his eyes. He nodded in response for a moment, and then continued walking, footsteps soon creaking above him, obviously pacing. Garrett readjusted his head, hoping that Corvo didn’t think too little of him for the outburst, and didn’t try to justify himself any further. Despite the thirst and his injuries, exhaustion soon pulled him into a fitful sleep, aided by the low clunking of the clock’s machinery, interrupted sporadically by Corvo’s slow pacing above him.

He floated through a dark world of fitful and vivid nightmares. It seemed that, even on a normal night, terrors were never far away from Garrett, but now it was much, much worse. When he closed his eyes now he was transported back to that cell, where faceless men lurked outside the door with instruments of torture: pliers, blades, branding irons, anything that could be used to maim, beat, or harm him. Usually the things that crawled out of the dark recesses of his mind at night were unspecified but disturbing, but now the horror was fresh, and the sensation from his aching muscles was fed back through the fog, making him struggle and scream when the large man with the silver bowl pinned down his hands once again to pull out his fingernails and break his bones. There was a pressure constricting his chest and he lashed out in response, making clear contact and hearing a grunt of pain.

Corvo tightened his grip around the thief’s shoulders, pinning him down and preventing him from lashing out at him again. He had heard the screams start only minutes after he left Garrett’s bedside. He’d had a whole fifteen minutes of peace. It had sounded like he was suffering severely, so he had uncapped the bottle of poppy milk that Basso had given to him and prepared it with what fresh water he could find, before bringing it downstairs. That was before Garrett had hit him. Although Corvo had the utmost sympathy for Garrett, he was now at his wit’s end, having gone two full days now without sleep, and with clumsy hands due to his slightly spinning vision, he had simply waited until Garrett’s eyes were open before holding the cup of poppy to his mouth. He took it without question, desperately grabbing onto it with his good hand and messily drank before the bitter taste hit him and he winced, pushing the cup away and spitting what was left in his mouth out, where it splashed onto his chest. Coughing and heart racing, he looked around wildly before spotting Corvo’s large hands and followed them with his eyes, up his arms and finally resting on his face. He just looked tired, and he offered the cup out again insistently, pleading with him in his eyes to drink. Garrett had some problems with this. He pushed the cup away again, as the anxiety at being forced to drink a strong sedative outside of his own control became overpowering. Whiskey when he needed a way to forget pain while on his own in the clocktower was one thing. Corvo force-feeding him a powerful poppy concoction was by far another.

“Please just drink it. You can have some water after.” The voice was desperate, and he offered it to Garrett once again, who clenched his teeth together and drew his lips tightly, “Or I’ll just have it myself because gods know I need it dealing with you.”

Garrett was still gathering himself after the vivid nightmare, still grounding himself in reality. He stared at the cup. Rationally, he knew he might feel better after having drunk it, but he still didn’t completely trust Corvo. Corvo raised the vessel, allowing Garrett to sniff it, checking for poisons, before lowering it again.

“What would Basso say?”

 _Basso would say don’t trust mystery drinks from strangers_ Garrett said to himself, remaining silent and still on the outside, _and also he would say don’t let strangers into your home_.

“I’m not leaving until you’ve had the whole thing, Garrett.” And the voice took on a serious tone, “I’m not playing games with you. We both need to sleep and I can’t be up every two minutes making sure you haven’t accidentally killed yourself.”

Garrett looked up at the ticking mechanisms of the clock above him, forcing himself to pace his breathing with it, closing his eyes, waiting for the anxiety to subside and the room to stop shaking. He subconsciously moved his hand and gripped Corvo’s wrist, steadying himself, breathing heavily through his nose, and the latter put the cup back down on the bedside table and gently but firmly held onto his arm as he sat up in bed, reassuring him. He was radiating an intense amount of heat and it took a couple of minutes for his face to go loose as the poppy began to take effect, and the resistance felt in his muscles melted away, leaving him lying angled against the wall. Corvo picked up the slack by sitting on the bed and reinforcing the pressure on Garrett’s left arm. There was a grimace - one last show of resistance before Garrett nodded slowly and Corvo picked up the cup again, holding it to his mouth, where he finished drinking the lot, with some difficulty and a bit of dry-heaving. When finished, he sighed and then leant back again, feeling fuzzy warmth wash over him, starting from his stomach and extending to the tips of his fingers and toes. It didn’t hurt any more.

“Thank you Garrett. It’ll make you feel better. Do you want anything else?”

Garrett looked up into Corvo’s soft brown eyes and nodded. “Water.”

Corvo picked up the container of water he had used to mix the poppy with, poured some into the cup and offered it to Garrett again, who failed at grabbing the vessel and made do with allowing Corvo to tip it into his mouth, and he drank lethargically but with as much concentration as he could muster, willing himself not to fall asleep or allow it to dribble.

Once satisfied, he laid back down again with Corvo’s assistance and watched as he took a spare rag to his chest, cleaned up what remained of the spilt poppy and then placed it on the table next to Garrett with the empty cup. Standing up, he tucked Garrett in again, and satisfied that the long, slow breaths were confirmation that he was finally falling asleep, he turned. 

Paused.

He grabbed the cup back off the nightstand and poured some more water into it, carrying it back upstairs with him. The milky bottle of poppy stood on the windowsill, and he poured another small dose into the cup, swirling it around so they mixed thoroughly, the whiteness diluting itself with the water. There was only one bed in the clocktower, Corvo understood, and Garrett was in much greater need than he was. Thankfully the pillow that Garrett had brought to him back when he had first arrived at the tower was still laid out on the floor next to the balustrade, and he fluffed it, taking his own coat off and lying outstretched on the wooden floorboards underneath the blue warmth. He reached for the poppy, knocked it back in one, wondering briefly if it interacted with whiskey, and shuffled underneath the coat, ignoring the cold creeping into his back already. He would just have to deal with it until he was sure Garrett was able to look after himself. The drug worked a lot faster than he had anticipated, and before long he was watching the rafters above him swirl into the darkness of the early morning, not expecting to wake up for a long time.

\----------------------

The first thing that Corvo noticed as soon as he woke up was that Garrett was not screaming. The only sounds were purely ambient: the thudding of the clock’s mechanisms, the soft shuffling of crows above him in the rafters, the dying sounds of the day out in the plaza far below the window. Vendors could be very clearly heard packing their produce away, children screaming, Watch patrols back out in force. How long had he been asleep? He rubbed his eyes and sat up, leaning his head heavily on the balustrade. The golden light of the evening was shifting its way across the floor in soft glowing tides. It must have been a long time if he had gone to sleep early in the morning and woken up now… eighteen, nineteen hours maybe? He hoped that Garrett’s poppy dose had not worn out while they were both asleep, and his stomach clenched at the thought of Garrett, unable to help himself in the middle of the day, in pain. His own sleep had been the most restful he’d had for a long time: dreamless, Outsider-less, painless, everything he could have required for good rest.

 _You’re getting mushy,_ he warned himself, pulling himself up against the table. Rationally he knew that if he hadn’t been woken up by screaming, which he hadn’t, Garrett was more than likely alright, that the poppy had done its job and he had been resting peacefully, safe, tucked into the bed on the floor below. 

Corvo picked up the pillow and his coat, slinging the latter over his shoulder, twisting his neck here and there to try and banish the crick that had settled there overnight and massaging his aching muscles. He noted that this was not something that he had experienced a few years ago, having spent a few nights in weird corners, which either meant that the various scuffles and fights he had got himself into over the years had taken a toll on him, or simply that he was getting old. He chose to believe the former.

He stepped lightly, aiming to make as little noise as possible while making his way down the stairs. Peeking down through the wooden railings, he found Garrett still soundly asleep in the bed, the covers undisturbed, arms still tucked firmly underneath the blankets, not moving, not snoring. Corvo breathed a sigh of relief, allowing his hands to unclamp from the railing and continued down the stairs, ensuring his footsteps were still soft, avoiding the boards he remembered to be creaky, dropped his pillow on the floor near the bed and laid back down on the hard wooden floor. Although the sleepy haze of the poppy had lifted, he still felt like he was able to rest for a few more hours in the absence of being needed by Garrett, so he gathered the coat around him and fell still once again, listening to the thief’s soft breathing merging with the low, wooden rumbling up above them. Having just slept for most of the day, it wasn’t as easy to fall asleep as it had been before, he was ready to deal with whatever madness was inevitably going to hit him that day, but he made do with rolling onto his right side and watching Garrett from the floor protectively. Although still pale, there was significantly more life in the thief's face than there had been the night before, and the golden light of the evening threw his face into sharp relief, the cheekbones and long nose highlighted as pale pink undertones shone through his skin. He did not even stir against the blankets and there appeared to be no eye movement beneath the lids, no characteristic twitch of his fingers. His sleep was clearly dreamless, just like Corvo’s had been. He wondered: how long had it been since Garrett had truly got a good night’s sleep? How often was he plagued by night terrors and panic, waking him up far too early? What did he even dream of? Corvo smiled to himself and fell asleep slowly once again, content in the knowledge that Garrett was safe and well under his protection.

Garrett woke up not long after Corvo had fallen asleep again. The light in the room was definitely darkening now, the definitive golden shade merging into a dark blue, throwing the room slowly but steadily into shadow. The characteristic bustling noise of the clocktower plaza had fallen nearly into silence, replaced by nothing but the occasional shout from a Watch guard or the scream of a fox. All the candles in the tower had gone out, including the brazier on the floor above, but it didn’t bother him. He was safe here.

It took a whole minute before the memories of the previous day rushed back to his head.

He remembered sitting in an unnamed room, talking to Basso in the high afternoon, leaving it and being supported on his way back home, didn’t remember anything before that so maybe, he thought, maybe it had just been a dream. He shut his eyes tight against the onslaught of messy thoughts and fractured images, attempting to raise an arm to squeeze the bridge of his nose but found it was bound in a tight sling, fingers splinted painfully together, finding it all but impossible to move it by himself, and especially not without disabling pain. Yep, definitely not a dream. He yelped quietly at the agony in his limb and stopped attempting to move it, screwing up his face. And who had been the man who he had leant so heavily against? Basso was neither that tall nor strong. This man had been bigger than Garrett, loomed over him and heaved him bodily from one place to the next. The thought of the previous night hit him like an arrow, reeling, heart slamming against his chest. He had been drugged…?

He opened his eyes and looked around, searching for evidence that he wasn’t alone, and was greeted dutifully by the sight of a lump stretched out underneath a huge blue coat in the middle of his floor, a lock of warm brown hair sneaking its way out from underneath the scratchy-looking fabric. That explained a lot: it was Corvo.

He wasn’t sure whether to be disturbed or relived. He gripped the sheets with his left hand best he could, feeling his knuckles whiten, waiting for the anxiety to calm back down and the dryness in his throat to dissipate. He had been breathing heavily through his nose, he realised suddenly, and it made his head spin slightly. Bad habit. 

_Calm down_ he said inwardly, chastising himself for allowing his mind to spin out of control like that. He remembered the anxiety and panic he had felt just before passing out the previous night, reminding himself that no, strangers (especially unrestrained strangers with unknown temperaments and motives) staying in the clocktower alone with him was not a good thing. But why had he not been harmed? How long had he been asleep? 

It was strange, he thought as he watched Corvo sleeping from the bed, this man had not only not hurt him, but had taken care of him. He had presumably taken him home without dropping or otherwise damaging him, got him into bed, and ensured he stayed safe. What were the motives? Garrett tensed as Corvo snorted and rolled over underneath the coat. Maybe there was some ulterior motive, but if it were truly nefarious, there had been more than enough chance to do whatever he was going to do. Garrett had been passed out cold for hours on end. If Corvo wanted to slit his throat or rob him, why not do it then? And why was he also spread out on the floor, vulnerable in and of himself in Garrett’s own home?

Garrett simply rested on his good side, staring at Corvo’s unconscious figure. So many questions. He had so many questions about this mysterious stranger, none of which he had asked yet. A pang of guilt hit him in the throat. Corvo had been sleeping on the floor for him.

As if prompted by some unseen force, Corvo stirred, shifted lethargically and slowly propped himself up on the floor with an elbow, looking around, face slack, hair sticking out in every direction. Garrett watched him sigh and drop his head back to the pillow, letting it rest for a moment on the burlap before once again he raised it and looked towards Garrett, who was gazing at him with a nameless expression carved into his face. Corvo got to his feet slowly, clumsily, and sauntered over to Garrett’s bedside. He flinched and withdrew slightly when Corvo sat down, obviously uncomfortable in several different ways. The flame of fear for his own safety still burnt in his eyes as it had the night before, but it was dimmer, replaced by another kind of fear.

Garrett watched as Corvo sat on the bed, his olive skin, salt-and-pepper stubble and dark hair shining dully in the moonlight. He rubbed his eyes, blinking all the remaining sleep from them before placing his hands in his lap. “Do you have a tinderbox?”

Garrett paused, letting several clunks of the clock machinery pass before he nodded and gestured over to the other side of the room at a desk that was all messy yellowed papers and heavy books and blemished blotting paper. The thief was obviously a studious one. Corvo shifted again and Garrett felt the bed lift as the weight disappeared and the springs relaxed, and watched him pick up the tinderbox and a couple of spare candles, brought it to the bedside, settling the waxy sticks in the candle holders and holding the tinderbox, his hands shaking slightly. He removed a pot of gunpowder and a small collection of dry wood before shifting and leaning towards the candle.

“I used to do this all the time but I haven’t had to it in a while,” he confessed, striking the flint several times before the char cloth caught in the metal tin and he held a small tinder stick out, guiding it carefully to the candles and ensuring they lit properly before picking the whole thing up and walking upstairs with haste, throwing the cloth into the brazier. Garrett heard the whoosh as Corvo added a sprinkle of gunpowder and the warm light seeped through the floorboards, before returning, feet creaking heavy on the stairs. “Gods know why they don’t use this stuff in the Watch.” He continued, holding up the gunpowder for Garrett to see, “Bit stronger than just using crossbows.”

“You’re not exactly reassuring me,” Garrett said in return, feeling the bed sag again as Corvo sat back down, “You’re going to discuss with me the ways the Watch could better gun me down?”

Corvo checked himself and chuckled dryly, shuffling his hair until it fell back into some semblance of tidiness, “I guess you’re right. I’m sorry about that. It was insensitive. How did you sleep?”

Garrett was about to shrug, but then decided not to, nodding instead. “Fine. Good. Better than I have in a while.” Corvo felt relief settle in his stomach as he waited for Garrett to continue, “How long…?”

Corvo shrugged. “Not sure. Eighteen, nineteen hours? It was past midnight when you finally went to sleep and now,” he gestured, “It’s just past dusk. So I’d hazard a guess at a very long time.”

There was a low hum in response and Corvo found Garrett looking up at the stairs, out the crack of window that could be seen from this angle, his eyes far away, voice soft, “And before that?”

“Not sure if you remember being captured but after that - after I got you - you were in and out all day. You seemed fine for a bit while you were talking with Basso and I but after that,” he shrugged, “You couldn’t seem to stay with it. It’s a miracle I got you up here.”

Garrett could feel redness creeping up his neck, colouring his pale cheeks. It was humiliating. He wanted so badly to be angry with himself for not just looking after his own shit but he couldn’t bring himself to do it, and settled on being angry with the men who had imprisoned him instead. 

“Are you hungry?”

Garrett was, indeed, very hungry, although he hadn’t realised it until Corvo had prompted him. This was far too common a theme in his life. He affirmed and watched as Corvo got up again and searched for the bread and meat that Garrett had brought out several days ago. 

“It’s upstairs.”

Corvo looked back at him and dipped his head in thanks, and before long Garrett could hear him padding about on the floor above before he heard a draw open and a package was grabbed, crinkling slightly among the thudding of the clock. Bringing it down, Corvo opened it and split the contents between the two, leaving Garrett’s half on the covers where he picked at it, trying his level best not to simply stuff it down his throat. Corvo was much less reserved about how he was seen eating, and damn near swallowed his own food whole. Garrett watched this display, mouth open. Was it just that he was hungry - starving even - or did he always act like whatever food he was eating was about to be taken off him?

He redirected.

“Where’s Basso?”

“He’s at the Crippled Burrick. Said he had some business to take care of and he thought you were safer here.”

That was odd.

Garrett struggled to sit up, pain seeping from his fractured arm down towards his fingers and Corvo sat to attention, guiding him gently into a sitting position, back resting against pillows piled up against the wall, and allowed him to settle, sighing. Basso, he felt, was usually a man who wanted to know for a fact that Garrett was safe, which usually involved keeping him under his own careful watch. His defining characteristics didn’t in any capacity involve being a control freak, but when there was guidance to be given, particularly if it involved injured blackhands, he felt particularly strongly about giving it. Garrett had seen how Basso had been when his other thieves were injured or caught. Usually it involved Basso smothering them in due care and attention - in his own house - before he let them go, if and only if he was satisfied they would now be able to look after themselves, and Basso presumably didn’t even know Corvo all that well. This left only two explanations:

One - Basso actually did already know Corvo in some capacity and trusted him enough to look after Garrett, better than he trusted himself.

Two - The ‘business’ that Basso was taking care of in the Burrick was significant enough that it threatened Garrett’s life and sending him away with a stranger was a better bet for his own survival. 

The second explanation was a lot more disturbing than the first, and unfortunately a lot more likely. Basso’s contacts were generally confined to The City, and even if he did trust Corvo better than himself to look after Garrett, he knew it would have given the fence a lot less anxiety if he was able to see him. He hoped against all hopes that whatever Basso was dealing with didn’t have anything to do with what Garrett had gone through. Although he acted aloof and indifferent to Basso, he cared deeply for him. For something to happen to him because of Garrett would be unthinkable.

Corvo noticed the fist clenching and unclenching beneath his gaze. “Everything alright?”

“Yes… I mean no… I mean--” He cut himself off and drew his knees up under the covers, struggling against the internal voice screaming at him not to be open with Corvo, that it was a slippery slope into sharing _feelings_ and giving _hugs_ , “I’m worried about Basso. It’s hard to explain.”

This was probably the first time Garrett had been completely open with Corvo about how he was feeling for as long as they’d known each other. Corvo took a minute to collect himself, shutting down the surprised expression that threatened to creep across his face before asking him to clarify. 

“Basso’s not the sort of person who takes suspicious visitors in his own home. I’m not there for a reason. There has to be a correlation.”

“Ah.” Came Corvo’s reply, “I see.”

Garrett was torn on what to do next. There was no way he was even able to get down from the clock tower in this state, at least not alive, let alone make it across the plaza to the Crippled Burrick. He toyed with the idea of sending Corvo, but shut it down, not wanting to ask anything else of him. He had already sacrificed so much, taken so many risks.

“You want me to go and check on him?”

Damnit.

Garrett paused and then nodded in confirmation. He realised that Basso’s wellbeing came above his own pride and aversion from asking for help. That was one thing he had going for him. “There’s a map over there if you need it.”

Corvo nodded in return, rising to his feet, ready to leave, only to be stopped by a slim hand gripping his coat.

“Corvo, who are you?”

 _That was a question and a half._ And so out of the blue.

Corvo removed the hand and placed it back on Garrett’s chest, climbing the stairs once again and bringing down the bottle of poppy, pouring a dose out for Garrett, leaving the filled vessel on the bedside table, trusting that he was now strong enough to drink it by himself if the pain became too much again. “We’re going to have to discuss this later. I’ll check on Basso and be back soon.”

Garrett agreed but still felt anxious. All this time with Corvo and still he didn’t know anything about him. He listened to the footsteps climbing out the window and stared into space, left now in silence, his eyes heavy with sleep. The pain was getting bad again, he still he felt unsafe taking the sedative, but now for a different reason. If Basso was being harassed, it meant only that he had been missed by the people who tortured him. He was still in danger, but was now alone in the tower, still almost completely unable to move, let alone fight or make a quick getaway. Although Corvo was heavily imposing and Garrett still wasn’t fully trusting of him, at least there was someone - someone who appeared to know how to fight competently - between him and whoever had a problem with him. When he was alone, he didn’t stand a chance, and he ran the risk of not even hearing anyone come in through the window while under a veil of sedative. He decided to take a chance with the pain that was slowly closing its way around his limbs and stared up into the floorboards of the floor above him, drifting off into a doze.

Although he was loathe to admit it, he hoped Corvo would be back soon.

\----------------------

Basso wasn’t sure quite what he had expected by the time he got back to the Crippled Burrick but he certainly didn’t expect five men dressed in heavy hooded coats and thick belts with attached pouches to be standing around smoking and talking outside the pub. Their thick, accented voices floated down the street as his heavy footsteps approached and when they finally turned and saw him, they regrouped, flicking cigarette butts into the gutters, some of them with their arms folded. Basso’s feet carried him on, although in his mind all he wanted was to turn and leave. These were the same men who had asked him to get them the book - the job that had nearly cost Garrett his life.

Dangerous.

They were dangerous.

The streets were dark, lit by the torches the Watch had hung up along the street and the warm light of the Burrick. Filthy puddles splashed underneath his feet, even as he avoided them, and he stuck his hands in his pockets, trying to hide how they were wringing. Best not to demonstrate to a potential opponent your mental status. If they knew that he was worried, they would capitalise on that fully. Basso didn’t know what they wanted: as far as he knew, Garrett had safely delivered the book to them, meaning he had upheld his end of the deal. He didn’t, however, believe they were there to pay him.

Approaching and pulling the group out of the entrance to the pub and into a corner that was still well within view of the Burrick, he rounded on them, his anger by far and away getting the best of him. He was physically shaking, both from rage and fear, his eyes wild, nostrils flared, seeing red. If these people were capable of hurting Garrett so much he nearly died, then what could they do to him?

“What the fuck did you do with my thief?”

The man at the front of the group smirked, throwing his face momentarily into dark relief before he lit another cigarette, shaking his head. He had long, dark hair pulled up into a high ponytail and gaunt, stubbled cheeks and a dangerous glint in his eye. “Manners. Firstly, my name is Alexander. And do you mean what did your thief do to himself?”

“You motherfucker,” Basso muttered in response, willing himself not to hit the man then and there, knowing that a fight with these people would become lethal very quickly, “What do you mean? This got something to do with that book?”

“Partially,” Alexander paused as a drunkard stumbled out of the pub and fell flat on his face before crawling round the corner and away from the scene, not seeming to pay any attention to the group, “One of our friends here saw your thief being carried out by the man who started that fire. A man we also happen to know.” His tone was lazy, threatening. It made Basso’s hair stand on end and he shifted from foot to foot, ready on the attack. “And one of the locals in the village reports seeing you hanging around in the woods at roughly the same time. Care to explain?”

“No, _friend_ ,” Basso jabbed a finger in Alexander’s chest, “You explain to me why the fuck I shouldn’t just rip your pathetic windpipes out of your pathetic throats for hurtin’ my thief.” 

Basso had always been careful about not using Garrett’s name around clients. Although he wasn’t known in The City for anything other than simply being a feared blackhand, and was referred to in day-to-day conversation as the Master Thief, Basso still felt uncomfortable about revealing any of his worker’s identities. It felt like a violation of trust. Basso himself wasn’t a man who really cared about what people knew of him, and especially didn’t care when they were relying on him to bring them an item, but unless one of his workers specified that they were happy for him to refer to them by their names, it was a topic he avoided, and would reject clients immediately if they wanted to know more about the thief. He also knew that Garrett would probably wring his neck if he ever found out Basso had told someone his name.

“That’s fighting talk, that is,” Alexander retorted smoothly, taking another long drag from his cigarette, “We have a vested interest in continuing to question that thief but we can compromise if you like. You tell us the name and whereabouts of the man who was spotted taking him away from us and we’ll leave both you and the thief alone.”

Basso felt cornered and his eyes narrowed in suspicion. He couldn’t tell these men where Corvo was, as it put Garrett in direct danger, and he was still unsure of the relationship between the two. It was suspicious, and he hadn’t felt good about sending Garrett off with a man he had only just met, but what choice did he have? There was a very long pause while Basso thought, maintaining painful eye contact with the Whaler before speaking “What’s it to you who he’s with? And what if he’s gone somewhere and I don’t know it?”

“Then that’s tough shit for poor Garrett.”

A long pause made it very clear that Basso wasn’t going to give them any information. The Whaler smirked again, flicking his second cigarette away and blowing smoke into Basso’s face, turning around while he coughed, “That’s for us to know and you to find out. You might want to do your research though. Dunwall. Jessamine Kaldwin. Look her up.” They began to walk away together, some pulling their hoods up and others simply tying their hair back. “One more thing: We’ll be back in a week. Then you can tell us where Corvo Attano is, and if you don’t, then--”

Basso had paced up to him surprisingly quickly, cutting the Whaler off mid sentence, gripping onto his coat, knuckles white, nostrils flared, breathing heavily, “If you even think about touching him then I’ll put you in the ground you disgusting fucking degenerate.”

There was a moment where Basso could have sworn a shadow of fear crossed the Whaler’s face before he began to laugh and shook him off, walking away. “One week old man.”

Old man.

_I’ll fucking give them old man._

He stood there alone in the street, shaking with rage, not caring that cold water from the ground was now seeping up into his boots. Loud chattering from inside the Burrick floated out and circled him lazily, the smell of beer and sweat evident among the stink of fetid rainwater puddles. He waited for his heart to slow back to a semblance of normality and for the red to retreat from the edges of his vision before taking his hat off, slicking his hair back with his right hand, sighing. This wasn’t an entirely new situation, he’d had problems with rogue thieves and unhappy clients before, to the point of fist fights in the streets which he had unfortunately been forced to put to a halt but this was the first time something this extreme had happened. And of course it involved Garrett.

He needed to warn him.

He took another breath to steady himself in the darkness before returning to his quarters underneath the pub. With shaking hands he scrawled out a note for Garrett’s attention. A small matchbox with a few shaking, ink-blotted words on it wasn’t really enough to explain the situation, nor emphasise the gravity of it, Basso knew that, but he hoped that he would be able to collect himself enough to find some better way of having a discussion with Garrett - in the absence of Corvo - and maybe find some way of shaking off the group of people who, for some reason, had decided to make his life a living fucking misery. He took the box, and with quivering hands attached it to Jenivere’s leg, giving it a gentle tug to test how well it held, before holding his hand out for her to step onto. She stopped cleaning her feathers almost immediately, warbled, hopped onto his finger without much question, her dark feathers shining with a faint blue tinge in the dying candle light, and Basso carried her to his window carefully. He’d dropped her a fair few times before, and each time she had spent days at the other side of the room, refusing to look at him. He didn’t want a repeat incident.

“You know where to go.” He said, holding her up to the night sky, “Just make sure he gets this.”

She looked at Basso once more with her big black eyes and cawed once again, first fluffing and then spreading her wings before taking off, the whirl of air hitting Basso in the face and making him cough. This was all he was able to do for now. He hoped that Garrett would get to the note before Corvo did: there were some things that were left only shared between friends.

He sat back down at his desk, thinking. Had he been right to send Garrett off with Corvo? The Whaler’s words spun in his head, dizzying him. If they had found Corvo first, protecting Garrett, then that was it, they were both done for, and nobody was going to be helping them. Basso wasn’t usually a man who paid close attention to the words and accusations that the people who hated him levelled against his own friends and allies, but the name _Jessamine Kaldwin_ floated in the dark recesses of his mind. He had heard that name only once, muttered in casual conversation between patrons of the Burrick, and that had been several years ago. He had dismissed it as simply gossip. _She was a politician_.

Basso shuffled his papers distractedly. He had never cared for politics, especially foreign politics, unless it directly affected his work. He had been outraged at the Thief-Taker General’s efforts to put his business under but he had survived. Not only that, but had done a lot of complaining and made a few good contacts in the process. Silver linings and all that.

But how was he to know whether Corvo was a real threat or if the men were trying to drive a wedge between Garrett and Corvo to weaken him?

He paced back towards the window, looking out and up. The cold breeze wafted in, making the candle flames dance and twirl in the rapidly fading light. He hoped he would hear back from Garrett soon, and if he didn’t, then it was time to worry.

\----------------------

“Too far, Alex,” One of the Whalers, said when she was sure they were well out of earshot, “You can’t go around threatening people like that. You’re going to get us killed.”

Alexander rounded on her, jabbing her in the chest with his index finger, “We need those runes, _Cass_ , and we need to find Attano. That’s all. This could be it. We could get our followers back. We could be great again.”

She shook her head in return, hoping the other Whalers felt the same way as she looked around for some support, “You’ve pushed it too far. You can’t just torture someone in plain sight and expect people not to turn from your leadership. Can’t you see why Daud never liked you?”

Shit.

There was a heavy silence for a moment before his voice intensified, still not much louder than a whisper, nostrils flared in fury, “Don’t you _ever_ say that to me again, don’t you dare, or I will end your pathetic life.”

With that, he turned on his heel and marched away, leaving Cass and the other Whalers standing in the street, cigarettes still glowing dimly in the darkness. Cass looked over at the others, who collectively shrugged and looked around.

“Touched a nerve?” one of the other Whalers asked after a moment, a hint of amusement hanging in his voice, “You should know better than that, Cass. Talk about a berserk button.”

“Yeah well you’d think I’d have learnt by now, Pavel,” she said, shrugging, “What’s he going to do anyway? Kill me?”

“Be careful,” he returned simply but without emotion, before they regrouped and followed Alexander back into the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for the OCs but I need to be able to tell the Whaler arc and can't just call them "Whaler 1", "Whaler 2", "Lady Whaler" etc if you get me? ;D


	14. Didn't Expect Anything Else

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Corvo talks to Basso about the Whalers. Garrett gets a message. We learn more about the Whalers.

Garrett had not been sleeping well at all. Instead of lulling him to sleep, the thudding mechanisms of the clock above him grated and ground on his nerves as he woke periodically from more night terrors and fought with the pain from his injuries that was quickly devolving back into agony. It may not have been more than five minutes in between each time he woke, and always there was discomfort in his jaw from grinding his teeth so hard against terrifying nightmares. More than once, he had reached over to the side table and picked up the poppy concoction with shaking hands, brought it to his lips, then decided against it due to the lingering fear that the cup might actually be poisoned and the terror of being jumped and never knowing about it. Instead, he made do with what he had: focusing still on the ticking above him and waiting to pass out from exhaustion again. Thanks to his arm, his range of movement was still very limited, and once he had begun to roll onto his bad side and consequently near-screamed at the fire licking its way up his arm, biting down on the other hand to shut himself up. Garrett hated loud, unexpected noise and his own yelling was in no way exempt from this aversion. He could hear it crisp and fresh, like someone was trying to tear his brain out through his eyes. No good.

He sat up after he had tried to sleep for what felt like the hundredth time. Slowly, painstakingly, he propped himself up with an elbow, pushing himself up and up until he felt comfortable enough that his core would be able to support him safely, and then reached behind him, feeling around on the bed for a moment before grabbing the drab pillows and haphazardly rearranging them into something that resembled a pile before leaning back, resting his injured arm against his chest. The light in the room was still dark, still hadn’t even begun to touch the earliest of blues, lit entirely by the candles and brazier on the floor above. He wondered how long he had been trying to sleep. How long Corvo had been gone.

Thinking back on it, he wasn’t sure how he had allowed himself to get into this position in the first place. He had wondered before how things would have been if he hadn’t let Corvo in on that first night, if he’d just allowed him to freeze to death on the balcony, but now he knew. He owed his life to him. It was sobering to know that he was only alive now because he had been scared that the Watch might have seen and investigated the noise. Or simply that he would have to deal with a dead body at some point. He wondered how Corvo had even ended up on his window ledge.

His musing was interrupted by several short, sharp taps on the window ledge. Jenivere. Garrett knew that tapping anywhere, but the sound made him jump all the same, clearly an aftereffect of the events of the past few days. He took a second to gather himself and stop his shaking before pulling the covers back with his good hand and standing up, chancing the agony that getting himself up the stairs would inevitably come with.

In Garrett’s honest defence, he had felt much better compared to the day before, although he was in nothing that even began to approach a healthy state, but he had hoped that it was good enough for the climb up to the window. And then it happened again. 

It must have been because he was sat in bed for so long. Regardless of the cause, his legs gave out from underneath him again as stars exploded into his vision and his head spun. He instinctively tipped himself backwards, aiming to sit back down on the bed, but didn’t fall far enough, instead crumpling to the floor in a heap, fire exploding in his arm. He hadn’t landed on it, by the mercy of the gods, but the jarring up his spine was more than enough to elicit a stifled yell. Within seconds of hitting the floor, the stars disappeared from his vision leaving him much steadier but still gripping his damaged arm, biting his lip hard enough to draw blood. He should have known that this would happen. Now, he truly was dependent on Corvo to do almost everything for him. 

Garrett scolded himself viciously, fruitlessly searching for a foothold against the smooth floorboards. Usually he was very careful with his physical health, looking after himself guaranteed a much smoother heist and the peace of mind that he would be able to continue with thievery for much longer than the average person, but recently he had utterly failed in that basic tenet. Probably taken a good few years off his useful lifespan too, completely disregarding the weeks, if not months, of physical and mental recovery. Of which, he would be dependent on Corvo to do things for him for some unspecified length of time.

He wasn’t sure if this was all done because he genuinely believed he was getting better (which was a wistful thought that he wished beyond all was within his grasp) or because he wanted to prove to himself that he wasn’t now completely dependent on another human being. It was true that he trusted Corvo now slightly more than he had before, after only a few short days of knowing him, but it still wasn’t enough, it still wasn’t acceptable to Garrett that he had to rely so heavily on him. He waited for the pain to recede to nothing more than a sharp ache before attempting to stand up again. Apparently that wasn’t happening either.

The still-raw wound on his leg was stinging like crazy. Every time he shifted, it felt like it opened up again, exposing his inner workings to the scratchy linen. Whatever the physician had used to sort it out the previous day had obviously done a lot of good, but it didn’t mean that it would heal quickly. Or cleanly. And now it was preventing him from getting back up.

The floor was hard and cold on Garrett as he broke into a coughing fit, his lungs burning with every breath he took. He decided that he would try to get back on his feet before Corvo got back, just to prove to himself that he didn’t actually need him. He finished coughing and propped himself back up. It was going to be a long night.

\----------------------

It hadn’t been too long since Basso sent Jenivere off to bring the note to Garrett before Corvo knocked on the door of his room. Basso had frozen momentarily, pressing himself into the shadows in the corner of the room, afraid that the Whalers who had visited him earlier had changed their minds and wanted answers now. There was another, more aggressive knock as Basso steeled himself, deciding whether to stay or to find an exit and flee, before a familiar, heavily-accented voice called out to him.

“Basso, are you in?”

He sighed in relief, feeling his muscles relax, and he leant against the wall, gripping his chest. There was another aggravated knock before Basso confirmed that he was coming, a half-yell as he stumbled across the room, unlocked the door and was greeted by Corvo’s towering figure, hand gripped just a bit too tightly around the blade attached to his belt. Basso’s eyes widened as he took a step back, looking up at Corvo’s face before he opened the door wider, inviting him in with a small nod, only after Corvo had taken his hand off the blade hilt.

Basso wasn’t really sure what he thought about Corvo. It had been beyond fortunate that he had run into Garrett at the time that he had. A man of his size and power was undoubtedly a threat to the much smaller thief if he had turned on him in any way; next to Corvo, Garrett was a twig, easily snapped and averse to physical confrontation, but if anyone else had found Garrett in such a state then it would have been near-impossible for them to carry him to safety. But Basso was still unsure of Corvo’s intentions. He didn’t believe for a second that Corvo and Garrett had “just run into each other” but until he heard the story from either one of the other of them, then all he could do was speculate wildly.

“Tea?” He asked as Corvo wandered into the room, clearly observing the layout and all Basso’s belongings. It was dark, dingy, a bit grubby although it didn’t bother Basso, but he hated having unexpected visitors. He didn’t like the feeling that his space was being infringed on, felt it was safer to meet new people outside of his own house, just liked to be left alone to do his own thing when home. It felt unnatural to have to cater to other people.

“Yes. Please.” Corvo said in return, stopping in the middle of the room and redirecting his attention to Basso, who filled a small kettle and set it down on the stove, before padding to his desk chair, sitting down. The whole thing seemed a bit too formal to be natural.

“Sit.” Basso motioned to another chair that was propped up against the wall, not far from the desk so Basso was facing Corvo and close enough that even low mutters would be clearly audible. He decided to delay the questions about what Corvo was doing in his house, opting instead to question him over Garrett. “Is he alright?” he continued, leaning back and crossing his arms over his chest.

Corvo took a moment to respond, formulating his answer carefully, “Yes. He took some of that poppy you gave me. He was screaming while he was asleep but eventually I got him to drink some of it. He seemed fine after that.”

Basso grimaced for a moment but then nodded, impressed, “I’m surprised you managed to get him to take it. Don’t know what I was expecting to be honest. Stubborn bastard. Kids these days.” He mumbled away to himself as the kettle began to whistle on the stove, “And yourself?”

Corvo was thoroughly taken aback by the question. He hadn’t expected Basso to ask him about he was doing too, and blinked for a moment before answering reluctantly, “I’m fine.”

“You’re fine, that’s good, you’re fine.” Basso continued, with his back turned to Corvo and an edge to his voice, filtering the water through the leaves. There was a moment where Corvo sat, nervously crossing and uncrossing his feet before Basso finished and brought the teapot over to the desk. He was avoiding eye contact. Corvo knew something was coming. Jessamine had always got like this when she was angry, became quiet and too involved in her own thoughts. Corvo braced himself, watching Basso’s hands shaking as he placed the pot and the two cups down on the table, pouring them out while taking a steadying breath before sitting back in his desk chair. Only now, finally, he looked Corvo in the eyes.

“What I want to know is why the bastar… ah, _clients_ who nearly killed Garrett are back here, harassing me and asking about _you_.”

Corvo’s stomach dropped. “What do you mean?”

“What do I mean?” Basso’s voice was slowly rising in volume as it boiled over, “I mean I had five _fuckin’_ men in full uniform blocking _me_ from entering my _own home_ and threatening to find and murder my best thief if I don’t tell them where you are. Explain. Please.”

Basso’s anger was more than justified. His face had gone bright red now, chest quivering with enraged breath. Corvo would have felt threatened and defensive were it not for the fact that he shared his fury. He needed to know more. Needed to explain more.

“I recognised these men as soon as I found them in the woods, I’m sure you’ll remember me saying,” Corvo began, measuring his breaths, “I needed to know what they were doing here, so I followed them and found Garrett. They hate me, Basso. They took something off me so I took something off them in return. I thought they were all gone. I thought they’d splintered. I thought they were _dead_.” He stopped himself to take a breath and temper his thoughts; accidentally revealing to Basso what he had done during the coup would be suicide.

“Don’t tell me you were part of a fucking cult,” Basso said sharply in disbelief, shaking his head, “I always knew you were bad news.”

Corvo felt himself being drawn onto the defence, shaking his head furiously and offering his palms up in desperate denial, “I wasn't. I will fix this, Basso. Did they say they’d be back?”

Basso sat there in silence for a moment, uncapping a hip flask and pouring a hearty dose of gold liquid into his tea, before placing it back on the desk and downing the tea a bit too quickly, “Luckily for you, yes.” He swallowed and grimaced, “They said they’ll be back in a week. If you’re not here to sort it out I’ll strangle you for them my-goddamn-self.”

Knowing Basso’s temperament, Corvo didn’t want to chance it. He doubted that the small man would be able to _actually_ strangle him but judging by the bookshelves crammed full of old tomes and how his hands failed to shake when handling the flask, he was quite possibly well-versed in poisons and steady with a dagger. All that was, of course, was conjecture. Basso, although initially appearing to have the demeanour of a grumpy teddy bear, was very clearly fiercely dedicated to looking after his thieves, and Corvo didn’t doubt for a second he would outright murder anyone who presented a credible threat. 

“I’ll be back,” Corvo assured him, finishing off his tea and standing up quickly, “I’ll wring their fucking necks.”

“You’d better do,” Basso chided back, “And make sure Garrett takes that medication. He’ll fight you over it if he thinks he feels fine.”

Corvo nodded silently, not wanting to waste any more time, worried at the prospect that the Whalers were now actively hunting Garrett and himself down. He needed to get back to Garrett as quickly and carefully as possible, not only because he was worried that he hadn’t taken the poppy he had left for him. He bid Basso a short farewell, guilt and anxiety coiling up in his stomach like a worm and made for the window on the off-chance that the Whalers were staking out the front door of the Crippled Burrick. He was nearly on the sill before a black and white bird hurtled in through the window, nearly smacking Corvo on the head in the process and sat on Basso’s now outstretched hand curled into a perch where she fluffed herself and started preening. 

Basso did nothing: simply looked at Corvo as he paused and made his way back out the window, feet clomping down on the other side and ensuring he was well out of sight before he blinked off into the darkness, leaving Basso alone with Jenivere. He wasn’t sure still how many Whalers there had been, but as Corvo knew all too well, even one was far too many.

\----------------------

Something crunched underneath Corvo’s foot as he stepped off the sill and into the clocktower. The brazier was still flickering away in the night, all the candles still lit and Garrett’s gear stashed safely under the desk where Corvo had left it when he carried him through the window the previous day. Corvo, before taking another step, looked down and found a matchbox stuck to the bottom of his foot, flattened underneath his own weight, slightly dirty from the mud on his boots, the message miraculously still legible, even with the spidery handwriting. Basso’s handwriting.

He picked it off the bottom of his boot, turning it over in his fingers before walking over to the brazier and taking a closer look at the note. His mother back in Karnaca had always warned him not to read other people’s messages, told him that it was rude and disrespectful, but Corvo often acted before he thought about these things. It was a bad habit. Very, very bad habit.

_Garrett,_

_Have ‘clients’ asking me where Corvo is. Please advise. -B_

He didn’t know if he was surprised or not. There was no way that Basso had seriously believed that Garrett, in his current state anyway, was able to meet Jenivere at the window and pick up his own notes, so he had undoubtedly been expecting that Corvo would have, at some point or another, come to read this message himself. Obviously, it had been tempered to disguise any obvious mistrust or hidden ill-feeling Basso had towards Corvo. He wasn’t sure whether he wanted to know what Basso wanted to say to Garrett in private, away from Corvo’s prying ears.

The realisation that he had not only given Basso his real name, but he had not considered that the Whalers might have had anything to do with Basso made his stomach clench in swooping anxiety. The lie that Burrows had perpetuated over Dunwall was well known: that Corvo Attano, former Lord Protector, had betrayed his empress and murdered her in cold blood (even if that lie was blatantly untrue), and if Basso caught wind of this then he would be done for. The Whalers would undoubtedly stop at nothing to drive a wedge between Basso, Garrett and Corvo himself in order to take revenge for Daud’s death. Whether that was by running Garrett through or taking Corvo’s own head, either would do in their eyes. Corvo was a fiercely devoted and loyal ally when he became close with others, so to take Garrett’s life would be just as bad, if not worse, than murdering Corvo himself.

Uncomfortable at the situation, he slipped the matchbox note into his pocket and re-orientated himself back into the present. He savoured the warmth of the hearth for a moment longer, rubbing feeling back into his frozen fingers, blowing on his hands trying to banish the cold from them. He wasn’t sure how Garrett did it, staying up here in a completely unheated clocktower save for this brazier and candles. He wondered if the Master Thief simply wore as many layers as possible while he was in or just avoided staying inside altogether over winter. Maybe it helped that he slept during the warmer days and went out to work overnight in the fully heated homes in the City. The weather had gotten cold very quickly. Frost glistened on the windowsill around the ridged edges of his boot mark.

He left the brazier and headed back down the stairs again, calling out to let Garrett know he had made it back, his voice echoing down the wooden struts inside the tower. There was no response. Maybe this meant that Garrett had actually done as he was told and had taken the poppy that Corvo had left for him?

Corvo should have known better than to think thoughts like that, known that it was nothing but wishful thinking. Garrett was stubborn beyond anything Corvo had ever known. And finding him sat on the floor next to the bed half-asleep was something that Corvo knew he should have expected, not to say he was actually surprised. Garrett started suddenly at the noise of Corvo’s boots on the wood on top of the mechanical systems of the clock tower, looking around with a blind panic in his eyes for a split second before his eyes finally focused on Corvo’s form and he tipped his head back, sighing in relief. _He must be freezing._

“I’m fine,” Garrett slurred at Corvo before he had the chance to speak, “I just wanted to look at something.”

Corvo didn’t believe the lie for a second. It would be funny if it weren’t just so sad: Garrett was totally and completely resistant to accepting help from anyone else, even when that ‘anyone else’ happened to be the same person who had literally saved his life not one week ago. What Basso had said about Garrett being willing to fight him over whether he was well or not suddenly made perfect sense. Corvo made a move.

Garrett only had a couple of seconds to let out an angry squawk and a hurried “What are you doing?!” before Corvo scooped him up and rolled him back into bed, placing the sheets on top of him once again, taking utmost care not to disturb his stitches, splinted fingers or damaged arm. His skin felt cold to the touch, as if he had been out of bed for a while now, and goosebumps erupted around where Corvo gripped him, the sharp cheekbones and back of his neck bathed in a light pink hue, contrasting with his arms and legs. Standing back up, ignoring the fact that Garrett immediately looked away from Corvo and gripped the sheets between his thumbs and palms hard as soon as he was set back down on the bed, he looked over at the bedside table. The cup was still full.

“You didn’t take your poppy.”

Garrett didn’t respond, opting instead to stare off to the other side of the bed. The idea of telling, no, confiding in Corvo as to why he hadn’t dosed himself swirled in his stomach, stirring up nausea along with the useless excuses. The prospect was unbearable. He had been exposed to the point of abject discomfort in almost every way so far since he had woken up: found his gear missing and burnt, found himself waking up in a place he didn’t recognise with no memory of how he got there, found himself being carried home by a man he’d only known for a few days. There was no privacy except in his own head now. And Garrett suspected he had spilled that too, exposed his own thoughts when he’d been sleeping or off his head on painkillers judging by how Corvo had reacted. 

And it was true, the pain was still searing fresh in his thigh and his arm, his fingers and almost every other fucking part of his body, and Corvo had returned now, so intruders weren’t so much of a worry now, but fuck that. Fuck having to take it again. _Fuck. That._

Corvo sat down on the edge of the bed, pulling the other bottle, the one that Basso had reminded him about asking Garrett to take earlier and uncorked it, smelling it. Scentless. The angular crystal design threw diffracted light across the sheets and his hands where the light caught it prettily. He toyed with the idea of spiking the poppy with a dose of that to make the whole ‘getting Garrett to take his medication’ thing a bit easier, but instead he touched Garrett on the shoulder, drawing his attention after a long span of silence. He held it up against the candle light and noticed how the flames danced and bent in the crystal, mirroring itself in the intricate edges, illuminating the whole bottle contents in pale yellows and oranges. Garrett didn’t look impressed.

“What?”

“Basso asked me to give you this too.” 

“What’s it for?” 

Corvo sighed. He didn’t suppose he had expected anything else. Upon second thoughts, it was probably pretty reasonable to expect Garrett to be asking questions like this, but not in such a short, clipped manner. “I think Basso said it was for the infection or something?”

There was a moment of silence when Corvo thought for a moment that Garrett might actually reject that too, but all that came was a _harrumph_ followed by, “Okay. Fine.”

Corvo’s body sagged in relief. He had fully expected that Garrett would reject it wholesale and he would have to resort to spiking his poppy or force-feeding him it, and inevitably, Garrett would find out and get upset, and who knew what else would happen, so Corvo allowed himself to relax, content in the knowledge that he didn’t have to betray anyone’s trust just to make sure Garrett didn’t die on his watch.

“You don’t have to keep watching over me, you know that?”

The comment caught Corvo off-guard. He had just been fiddling with the smaller bottle when Garrett had spoken, his voice sounding thoroughly dejected. Corvo paused and then turned around on the bed to face Garrett, feeling the shifting and sagging of the mattress underneath him, the sheets resisting his movement.

“What do you mean?”

“Why are you doing this?” Garrett continued, as if he was about to break out into a spiel, “You could have gone back home, you could have left me to die in there, but you didn’t. Why?”

There was a hint of something like amusement in Garrett’s voice, partly fascination, partly frustration. His eyebrows knitted themselves together before unravelling and repeating, but nonetheless he stared into Corvo’s eyes, intense. The air seemed to still.

Corvo shrugged, “I felt like it wouldn’t be right to leave you there. You’re right, I could have gone back home and seen my daughter and had my own home and bed, but you helped me too. On that first night, I think I was running from someone or something. And you got me out of harm’s way. It’s a way of saying thank you. In Gristol, we repay favours, and we definitely don’t just let people die.”

Of course, this was a lie, but Garrett didn’t need to know that.

Regarding the statement about Garrett saving his hide: it was true. Corvo had been wracking his brain almost obsessively for the past few days now, ever since he had stayed in that tavern near the outskirts of the city and spotted his own Wanted poster. Something had been amiss in the week leading up to arriving at Garrett’s window, and he needed to know what had happened. He remembered that there had been a tavern fight, and that he had been running, that there had been a moment where he was falling, but still not much more than that. It was frustrating. Infuriating.

Garrett nodded in return, blatantly unsatisfied by the answer but unwilling to probe any more at that moment in time. Everything hurt so much and he had just realised that he’d been clenching his teeth together, grinding them against the pain and consequent annoyance at Corvo’s apparent rambling. He wasn’t an impatient man, but pain was something that usually tested his limits extensively. He toyed with the idea of taking more poppy. Corvo had evidently seen him looking at the cup, and reached over, rolled it into his palm with the tips of his finger and brought it over before stopping and pouring a dose from the crystal bottle into the cup, then holding it out to Garrett who stopped, squinted as he read the label, before nodding and allowing Corvo to help him raise the cup to his lips, where he drank slowly at first but then increased in pace until it was gone.

Corvo had forgotten about the matchbox note in his pocket, he realised as Garrett put the cup down on the side table and sighed contentedly. He drew it out, turning it over in his fingers before handing it to Garrett, who took it gingerly in his good hand, promptly dropped it, picked it up again and read with squinted eyes. “What’s this?”

Unsure of what to say, Corvo shrugged, “Note?”

Garrett ignored the sarcastic comment, his eyes still tight as he struggled to read it, sorting through the words in his head as if he was translating from some foreign language. The room was spinning around him. He was so tired. But this note might be _important_.

“What do they want to know about you?” his pupils were blown now, a drunken smirk settled on his face, his head tipped back, resting against the wall at an odd angle, which looked uncomfortable. Garrett didn’t seem to care. He quite clearly wasn’t any more than half-way with Corvo.

The question was so innocent, and Corvo had not prepared himself to be answering this type of query, especially when Garrett was quite literally _high as a fucking kite_. He shrugged the question off, knowing that he would have to come up with a valid explanation the next time Garrett was lucid enough to ask again, hoping somewhere in the back of his mind that Garrett would simply have forgotten about it by the time he woke up. It was going to be a tough one to explain and bounce back from.

He pushed Garrett back into the bed with a firm-but-reassuring hand and watched as Garrett struggled to resist, to push himself back up and failed, grimacing as he put too much pressure on his fractured arm and fingers, gave up and laid flat on his back, and looked back up at him seriously, “Corvo, what do they want to know?”

He should have known that eventually it would come to this. It wasn’t ideal in any way, but he breathed and tried to calm himself down before speaking. He told Garrett the same thing that he told Basso: that he had a history with the Whalers and that he hadn’t expected to see them again in Dunwall, let alone some random island Corvo had never visited before.

Garrett listened to Corvo talking with heavy eyes and the same ridiculous smirk curling his lips upwards, letting him explain the situation before holding up his hand, motioning for him to stop. The hand swayed in the moonlight, the shadows emphasising the bones standing out from his skin and the long fingers. “What’s this got to do with me?”

Corvo braced himself, “When I saw Basso, he told me that he’d been visited by Whalers, the group I was telling you about?”

Garrett nodded.

“Well they’re the same people who… anyway they said that one of their own had seen you with me, and wanted answers. Said that--”

Wait.

What was he saying?

He couldn’t just go and tell Garrett that the same group that had tortured him so brutally had threatened to find and kill him if Basso didn’t tell them where he was. What sort of person did that make him? What sort of state would it throw Garrett into?

“Said that they needed to talk to me. That’s all.”

Garrett wasn’t satisfied with the explanation in any meaning of the word, but the drowsiness was quickly becoming too much for him. He had slowly slid onto his side where he had come to rest leaning heavily against Corvo, who accepted this without question, allowing Garrett to use him as a pillow. The fact that the group who had captured him were still out there and apparently looking for the very same man who was staying in his clocktower tonight was more than enough for him to curl up into a ball and wish he didn’t exist, just from the stress, if the poppy weren’t just sitting on his brain like some kind of leech that, somehow, made the world seem somewhat nicer than what it actually was. There was still a tinge of anger clouding his calm mood, beyond the veil of poppy. Anger at Corvo.

It was unfair to be angry at Corvo for this situation: he had done a lot for Garrett, protected him, saved him, consulted with Basso, but it was hard not to be upset at him for potentially endangering his life and mental stability, not to mention Basso’s. He pushed the thought back down into the addled fog. That was something he could worry about when he was feeling a bit more sober.

Corvo waited and watched the early dawn light sliding across the floor as Garrett slowly stopped murmuring and breathy giggling to himself and relaxed against his own body, jaw going slack and shoulder muscles unwinding as he fell asleep. He was quiet when he wasn’t having nightmares, with soft in-out breaths and periodic finger twitches as he descended deeper into the drugged fog. Corvo adjusted the thief’s head carefully when it rolled down off his shoulder, wondering if he shouldn’t just make sure the thief was comfortable, laid out safely on his back and warm under the covers.

When he did try to make a move, Garrett grunted and, still unconscious, held onto Corvo’s sleeve insistently, so Corvo complied. “I’m not going anywhere,” he reassured Garrett, even though he was absolutely sure he hadn’t been heard, and if he had then he wasn’t being comprehended. He slid his hands under Garrett’s upper back and shifted him to the side a little, ensuring his head was still safe and comfortable, before taking off his own coat and laying down next to him, enjoying the feeling of finally being in a soft, warm bed instead of on the floor.

But the best thing about it was looking over and seeing Garrett’s face, finally at peace. Not looking disgruntled or angry or drawn into a pained grimace, but for once he looked serene, almost - dare he say it - contented. The corners of his mouth were still curled upwards slightly, betraying the weakest beginnings of a smile in the blue light of the early morning.

And that, of all things, made Corvo happy.

\----------------------

The City had been a lot colder recently. Frost hung heavy in the air, clung to the walls and froze underfoot as Watchmen hurried from building to building, wrapping their coats tightly around themselves, tucking scarves in, sticking near to the torches on the walls and braziers for warmth. Black Alley stood frozen in the midst of it all, the buildings rising up high on either side of the street, the puddles underfoot freezing and glinting under the full moon.

Going back, after the fire, there had only been a handful of Whalers left. Those who hadn’t died or defected or jumped on the nearest boat to get back to the Empire, were left in the City to pick up the pieces, to gather themselves and decide on the next best course of action. Orion had not been heard from since the incident, had not contacted the Whalers, leaving them floating with no leader. No external leader, anyway. This was catastrophic, led to a power vacuum that had rapidly opened the moment Orion had disappeared.

Alexander was arguably the closest thing that the group had to such a thing. Brash and snappish with long, dark hair pulled back into a high ponytail, he towered above the other Whalers in both height and arrogance. He had been the one who had initially suggested making the move to the Eternal City after the death of Daud, to the apprehension of some of the other Whalers. The following had grown steadily before the splintering of the other Whalers became too destabilising for the group and Alexander finally managed to get in contact with Orion, so they banded and left. It had been a long and hard journey, but eventually they had landed.

Alexander had only heard about Orion after doing some serious digging in Dunwall news bulletins and libraries, and had travelled to the City especially to try and find him. Orion hadn’t been quite what Alexander was expecting, but he decided it would do for the time being. He had gained a reputation in the Whalers for being aggressive and unstable but ambitious, so he needed an external source to validate the move, as well as a contact who might be able to give them some sort of support or footing. Orion was not well-off, but he shared what he could, gained the support of the Cityzens who owned the chapel, and let the splinter faction of Whalers stay there for a while. It wasn’t much, but it was enough.

Orion had also seemed very interested in the existence of bone charms and runes, had discussed the ancient energy called the Primal and wondered out loud how runes would interact with it. Alexander had laughed inwardly, thinking Orion a crazy man. But that had been before he had moved out of Dunwall and taken the leap, moved to the City.

It was true, in his search for information about Orion, Alexander had found academic evidence that runes also existed in the City, but in what capacity, he wasn’t sure. All he needed to know was that they were there, and he wanted them.

Alexander had always looked up to Daud like a father, but Daud never really seemed to have time for him. The powers imbued to him by the assassin had been notably weaker than his other Whaler counterparts, significantly more so than the likes of Billie Lurk, and it stirred up anger and resentment over time, as Daud walked past him without a word, when Alexander’s attempts to please him went unnoticed. He heard whispered words from other Whalers while out on their patrols in the flooded district, that those who had the strongest powers were those who were closer and more respected by Daud than anyone else. 

This had crushed Alexander.

So he decided to do better, and in the process, he became even more bitter, jaded, and irritable.

His colleagues had always stayed well away from him due to his volatile nature, but in his eyes there had always been some level of _respect_. Despite the fact that he wasn’t able to blink as far as the others, and he couldn’t pull anything much larger than a small chair, he was arguably just as good, if not better than the others in the more physical disciplines. He got used to running further, jumping higher, practiced his footwork and lunges well into the night when all the others had gone to bed, all the while seeking some kind of validation or recognition. None of this was ever forthcoming.

On the day that the Royal Protector, Corvo Attano, turned up half-dead on a boat in the flooded district, Alexander had watched curiously from his post on top of a nearby warehouse, wondering what all this meant, what he was doing here. There had been word that the recent murders of several high-profile people had been down to him, despite his supposed disappearance from Coldridge Prison, but it had been little more than frenzied rumours in his eyes. 

He had seen Daud confiscate Attano’s weapons and gear.

Alexander had been slacking, pissing off the edge of a nearby roof when the screaming from Daud’s office caught his ear, and he looked over just in time to see Attano slit his boss’s throat and throw him roughly, carelessly off the edge of the bombed-out shell of a building. It had been such a beautiful, warm summer evening, but in that moment it turned cold with rage. It was too far a distance for Alexander to blink from his position over to where the post Royal Protector was now slaughtering his best friends, so he made do with what he had always known, what he had always believed made him better than the other assassins, but it was too late by then. Attano had disappeared down into the sewers and escaped from his grasp like a rat in a drainpipe, and it hadn’t mattered how fast he ran or how good his parkour had been because it was a question of seconds instead of the minutes that Alexander was capable of. 

He had held Daud’s body and cried bitterly before the others arrived. The man Alexander had seen as a father had been taken from him in a matter of seconds. He had never received closure, never had his chance to prove himself to the Knife of Dunwall. Even though Daud had always been aloof, Alexander had tried his best to look past that.

He had grown up an orphan and had originally turned to Daud because he showed some kind of promise, of leadership and guidance. To have that taken away from his was unbearable. It was even worse to feel what little magic he had been imbued with ebbing away slowly with each passing day after Daud’s death. Having looked around his office after his murder, he found some literature on the bone charms and runes and how they helped build and nurture the Void powers granted to him by the Outsider. Maybe, he thought, there was promise in that. Maybe he would be able to become as great as the Knife with the help of these runes, maybe he would be able to carry on his legacy.

Alexander had encouraged the Whalers to stay together after that night, but they began to break apart almost instantly, fighting among themselves leading to brutal feuds and violent murders. He had even taken part in one or two himself, having jumped one of the younger recruits one dark evening and gutted him in a furious moment with a few of his other colleagues. That recruit, he was sure, had allowed Attano to slip past their forces. And it had felt _good_ to get revenge. But only for a fleeting moment.

Really, Alexander knew that it wasn’t revenge. Revenge would be to torture and mutilate and _murder_ Corvo Attano for what he had done. It would be to gut him and pluck out his eyeballs and have his head on a pike above the spot where Daud’s life was taken from him. Instead he settled for the small-but-growing numbers of other Whalers who, sick of the violence and bickering and infighting, had decided to come with Alexander to the City, to do more study into the runes that were rumoured to be situated there, and to restore themselves to their former, fearsome glory. 

Along with Alexander came some of the people he had been on frequent patrols with: Pavel and Cass, both heavy built, strong and powerful, magically and physically. Cass, although short, was able to handle a blade quicker and more gracefully than any other person he had ever known, and Pavel was cunning, intelligent and calculating. But not as calculating as Alexander. 

Cass had always hated the way that Alexander had gone about doing things. She was empathetic to a fault, generally opted to stay on patrol, preferring to guard Daud and her colleagues rather than going out to kill, and Pavel was generally more passive about things, morally grey, but erring on the side of mercy when he was asked for it.

Alexander, with the help of Cass and Pavel, had eventually become the de facto leader of the splinter Whaler faction, making sly suggestions for Orion, using him for his own ends. It was Alexander who had suggested commissioning a thief to find and retrieve the rune fragments. Alexander who had then gone on to plant a fake book to encourage and provoke Orion into giving further power to him in fear of nonsense dark arts. Alexander who had then gone on to instruct and endorse the torture of the thief who had brought him what he wanted.

That wasn’t before they had found Corvo Attano wandering the streets, and made an attempt on his life. Some of the Whalers had taken an evening off to have a drink and some fun with the local women when one of them had recognised the Lord Protector stood by himself at the bar, drinking. He was clearly tipsy already at that point, so it hadn’t been difficult to cause a distraction and slip something in his drink.

And somehow Alexander and his underlings had lost him in the winding streets of the Eternal City, but not after doing some severe damage. He had taken the Whalers back with him and beaten them harshly, behind closed doors, left one of them in one of the cells at the very bottom of the base for several days before coming in to find him dead of thirst.

Cass had a lot to say about the torture of the thief when it happened, just like she had when the stray Whaler was found dead. She had rounded on him as soon as she found out what was going on and threatened to leave there and then. She told him she saw right through his lies, that she never believed that the thief had done anything wrong, and she was disgusted and ashamed at what he was doing. Pavel agreed with her. 

Alexander didn’t care. He was itching to get his hands dirty again, and the thief was simply a plaything that he would eventually have his fun with. And all the while, the powers that Daud had given him were still fading away, his blink range reduced to not much more than a foot or so, unable to pull anything much bigger than a small pistol, which made him all the more furious, enraged at the loss of what set him apart from other people in the City. He had threatened to kill Cass when she told him she was going to tell the Watch about the thief.

The first few Whalers had begun to defect with the development regarding the thief’s torture, and after that, when they had found Corvo Attano walking through the woods after the fire, cradling the small figure in his arms and walking with another portly man, Alexander had been furious. 

The Royal Protector had taken something away from him, again. By the time the splinter faction had arrived at the abandoned house in Black Alley, they had lost over half their followers, either through defection or death. Alexander knew he had to change tack, to give his followers something to hang on to.

Clearly, that change in direction would be to find Attano, execute him, and get those rune fragments back. If they were able to find a way to extract the power from them and use them to bolster their powers, it would be a pivotal moment for the splinter faction and they could return to glory.

But that wasn’t going to happen while they were holed up in some abandoned house in Black Alley, fighting over scraps of food stolen from random Cityzens, locked in a constant power struggle. It had been difficult to handle previously, but that was with the oversight of Orion, which kept the fights in check to some extent. Now he was gone, it had devolved into chaos, and although Alexander had trusted his own judgement to keep a grasp on them and use them to work as a unit, he was beginning to have doubts.

Cass was looking at him from across the room, sat on the splintered window sill, playing with a wooden cube she had picked up at some point, rolling it around in her hands, throwing it up into the air, catching it, repeating. Her long, black hair had become greasy and matted while they had been staying in the temporary accommodation and she had taken to tying it up as a matter of practicality. She had still not forgiven Alex for his outburst the previous night, made it absolutely clear that she despised him and what he had done.

“I know you’re looking at me,” he said, not looking up from his desk, still making notes on a map he had sprawled out in front of him on the desk, “Can’t you just go somewhere else?”

She ignored him, continuing to throw the cube up and down in the air distractedly, still staring at him. She narrowed her eyes, sighed, and then hurled the cube at Alexander before blinking behind him and catching it as he flinched and raised his hands to protect his face.

“No. I need to know what you’re planning next.”

He turned around, annoyed, “Why? Whatever I do is for the good for the Whalers, so why are you stopping me?”

She gripped the back of his chair, staring over his head at the notes he made on the map. The Crippled Burrick was circled in black ink and notes written in scruffy handwriting graced the edges of the paper. “You know that’s bullshit. How is terrorising a man - who did exactly what you asked him to do by the way - for our own good? I get that you want to find Attano but there must be a better way to do it. Daud would be ashamed with what we’ve become.”

He stood up, tired of having Cass stare over his shoulder. It made him feel very uncomfortable, like she was about to drive a blade into his neck. “I would have killed him if I’d had my own way but I understand you think you can do better. You tell me how to do it.”

The silence was deafening. His eyes bored into her and she suddenly felt very out of place, stood in front of him with her arms crossed over her chest. She couldn’t think of an answer. He raised an eyebrow as she shuffled awkwardly where she stood before she relented and shook her head, “I don’t know. But aren’t you supposed to be the leader here? That’s what you keep telling me.”

“That’s what I thought,” he continued after hearing her reply, “And if you even think about telling that Outsider-be-damned fence anything then I will find out and I will make your life a living hell.”

“And what if I go back to Dunwall? What if I’ve had enough of you being a creepy fucking psychopath?”

His eyes flashed dangerously before he scraped his chair back around to face the desk, “It would be a shame if the new Empress Kaldwin heard that you were involved in an attempt on her father’s life, and then found out where your family live.”

She crossed her arms, rolling her eyes, sighing, “Really? You’re gonna pull that?”

Alexander ignored the comment, continuing to work over the map, picking up the pen again and scratching more garbled annotations into the rough cream paper, “I know you, Cass. You’re not going to just up and leave like those other bastards, and I know you wouldn’t tell that fence about what’s going on. I trust you. You’re my closest friend.”

“Well that’s news to me,” she shot back, bristling and turning to leave, “I hope you don’t treat all your other friends like this.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two things:
> 
> Firstly I was wondering if this is still making sense to you guys? I find it very easy to get lost in my mental image of how things are happening/what people look like/what settings are like and re-reading some of my stuff I realised I keep forgetting to actually write what I'm thinking about, which can probably get confusing. So if there's something that's confusing you then speak up, let me know, and I can either edit it in or clarify in a later chapter.
> 
> Secondly, for those of you who don't know, I have a [Tumblr blog](http://ledaeus.tumblr.com/) where I post about Dishonored, my fanfic, and Thief in general (and lots and lots of memes) so just to let you know :)
> 
> Thanks for reading as always, and apologies for the long author note.


	15. Sutures

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Corvo has to deal with an emergency. We find out what happened before the first night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for drugged drinks, gore(?) and medical inaccuracies. God knows why I keep trying to write this cos I don't know _shit_ (ง •̀_•́)ง

It had taken several hours to get there but Garrett had finally managed to sit up by himself on the edge of the bed without being supported by Corvo or crying out in pain. The poppy had worked wonders on him the night before and for the first time in days, he had woken up feeling a little better - there was no more constant nausea turning his stomach, some of the minor cuts and bruises had begun to scab back together and fade, he managed to keep a lot more food down than before, asking for bread as soon as he was lucid enough to look Corvo in the eye without drifting. 

It had been as large a surprise as any to wake up to Corvo sleeping next to him, sharing his bed, but he hadn’t questioned it initially, waiting for the languid flickering of the nearly burnt-out candle to his side to pull him out of the white fog, and when he was finally present, the more rational side of his brain had kicked in, and by that time, Corvo was up and about anyway.

It was definitely unfair to expect him to sleep on the floor, Garrett decided early on, but at the same time it made him uneasy, like it had been an invasion of privacy.

 _Yeah, like privacy exists any more,_ he thought, avoiding Corvo’s occasional gaze as he meandered around the clocktower apparently looking for something to do. And although he had become more comfortable with Corvo’s presence (gods forbid, _enjoyed_ it at times), he couldn’t help but shake the feeling he’d just rather be alone, as he’d always known it.

And now here he was, sat on the edge of the bed, having tried and failed to change his own bandages, being tended to yet again by Corvo. Garrett had almost got over the embarrassment too at this point, resigning himself to just let it happen and not to make too much of a fuss about it. Corvo hadn’t seemed to notice any of this, at any point, and was knelt at Garrett’s feet, tongue poking out from in between his lips in concentration, pulling fresh bandages around Garrett’s wounds, trying not to aggravate the rest of the injuries. 

The very act of having bandages replaced was refreshing, almost pleasurable to Garrett. It was true, the cuts stung and stuck to the old dressings as Corvo pulled them away, however gentle he was with the injuries, pulling at the skin and drawing oozing droplets of blood from the wounds as they separated from the gauze, and the subsequent sting of the damp cloth as it was dabbed over the site and left to dry, but when they were re-wrapped, they felt like new. Like he could feel himself knitting back together. Every day. Every day was better than the last.

“I used to take care of my own wounds,” Corvo said from where he was sat, tying the bandage up at the back of Garrett’s forearm and shifting onto his knees where he sat back on the balls of his feet and looked up at Garrett, “Years ago, when I was young and stupid and fought people I knew I couldn’t beat. I learnt how to look after myself.”

Garrett let out a low hum, listening to Corvo intently.

“It wasn’t sophisticated medicine but it was alright in a pinch,” he said before he stood up, groaning as his knees protested from being knelt on for so long, “Does that feel fine?”

Garrett simply nodded, testing the tightly-wrapped material carefully by flexing his arm against it. Corvo had actually made a good job of it. It didn’t even sting. Garrett had done his own fair share of looking after and healing his own wounds but usually he wasn’t so… diligent about it. It was more of an annoyance than anything; injury was just a barrier to his work, and although he knew it would be worse if he half-arsed the job and gave himself an infection or pulled a wound further open in the process, he couldn’t seem to get that to translate to real-world actions.

He was clumsy about it too: bandages were more often than not wrapped loosely and far too thick, rarely changed and, bizarrely, sometimes even sitting on top of leathers instead of underneath; stitches too wide apart, sloppy and painful; pulled muscles treated with half a day of rest before Garrett’s fingers and mind became itchy once more and he felt the urge to leave the tower, find Basso and pretend everything was alright so he could take another job.

Basso never said anything about it anyways so it was probably fine. And he hadn’t keeled over yet.

Corvo whistled a tune to himself as he picked up the dirtied bandages he had left in a bowl at the side of the bed and wondered upstairs to dispose of it before coming back down with more food, which Garrett ate thankfully, as well as a dose of the clear liquid that Basso had asked Corvo to give to Garrett. He was less enthusiastic about the medication but he took it anyway, knocking it back as quickly as he could, relieved that it wasn’t laced with poppy this time.

“I can take a look at your stitches too if you want?”

Garrett didn’t really _want_ , but he was tired of resisting and feeling anxious in his own home, so he shrugged and allowed Corvo to unshirt him with great difficulty, allowed himself to be helped to lie prone once again, watched Corvo draw up a chair at the side of the bed and lean over, taking a closer look. The dark hair fell over his eyes, protecting him from Garrett’s view.

The work surprised Corvo in all its sophistication. The sutures were small, neat, drawn cleanly together and underneath, Corvo could see the wounds beginning to heal and close up nicely. He hadn’t expected the doctor to have done any particularly notable work, what with it being so back-alley and dirty, but Basso had paid him well and now Corvo could see why. He was very clearly a skilled medic.

“Looks good,” Corvo said to Garrett, who was looking up at the floor above, uncomfortable at being probed so thoroughly, “They should be ready to come out in a few days, I think. Not sure how we’ll get you back to the clinic but I’m sure we’ll manage”

Garrett wasn’t particularly interested in taking part in this conversation so he just grunted, allowing Corvo to slide the oversized shirt back over his head and help him back into a sitting position. He wanted to get up, to be able to walk around and look after himself already, to not have to rely on Corvo for everything. That was what he really wanted. 

Corvo had enjoyed looking over Garrett’s chest very much in a weird kind of way. Garrett was truly a work of art: slim and short but very toned and surprisingly muscular for a man of his size, the undeniable product of several years climbing, creeping and running from guards. There was no doubt that Garrett’s diet wasn’t going to be that great, having little-to-no access to cooking facilities and relying on dried and tinned foods when he got hungry in the clocktower (Corvo assumed he took hot food from wherever he pleased on a day-to-day basis as thievery wasn’t exactly a foreign concept to the man), but considering he seemed to live mainly on dried food packages, he was fit and healthy. But there were scars too, that trailed underneath Corvo’s fingers lightly, ones that he had noticed over the past few days but now he had a better chance of taking a closer look, and he had taken that chance with both hands, allowing his fingers to drift over the muscle and sinew, feeling the small ridges where raised, pale scars stood out, passing under his own fingertips.

Garrett hadn’t appeared to notice. Or, if he had noticed, then he was allowing it to happen and didn’t really care. Either was good with Corvo.

Garrett had, in fact, noticed, which was why he was now avoiding Corvo’s gaze even more aggressively than before. Because the light brushing of the callused fingertips on his skin had confused him: it had sent shivers erupting up and down his arms and legs and down into the the very pit of his stomach, repressing goosebumps, willing them not to spring up underneath Corvo’s touch and give the whole game away; but it had also made his toes curl in something like humiliation, wishing he could just curl up into a ball and shrivel into nothingness. The dichotomy between, and jarring combination of, the two feelings confused Garrett more than anything else, more than why Corvo had decided to stick around, why he had been subjected to such cruel punishment, why any of this had happened to him, why, why, why.

He didn’t understand how this could feel good yet so terrible at the same time.

Corvo was already up and about before Garrett could collect himself enough to say anything, humming away to himself, as if nothing had ever happened. But the air felt tense to Garrett. Something had definitely changed. As if something had clicked into place.

“Tea?”

The question unceremoniously jerked Garrett back out of his own head and had his eyes darting around searching for the source, dazed and confused.

“What?”

Corvo held the cup up in response and wiggled it in his hand, “Do you want tea?”

Garrett shrugged again, dropping his eye contact with Corvo and going back to rolling the sheets between his thumb and palm, “Just don’t put any poppy in it.”

Corvo chuckled in response, turning. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

\----------------------

“So who were those people you said had been talking to Basso last night?” Garrett asked when they’d both finished their drinks, still sat in bed, Corvo in one of the wooden chairs, feet on the end of the bed, chair resting precariously on its back legs, swinging slightly, “You did mention it didn’t you?”

Corvo hummed softly, pretending that his ears hadn’t immediately pricked and his mind hadn’t spun into action, still thinking of how he could defuse the situation safely. He had been reading one of Garrett’s books, old and dog-eared but still somehow in a reasonable condition, and used that as an excuse to not meet the thief’s gaze. But that didn’t prevent the feeling that his eyes were boring into the side of his head.

Eventually he relented and looked up, irritated at Garrett’s insistence. Having thought further about the situation, and after plenty of time painstakingly synthesising and analysing all the possible outcomes, he had decided on the best course of action. It would be disastrous if Basso was the one to tell Garrett that Corvo had actually known the people that had captured him, and that they were going to find and hurt him _again_ , then the trust between them could be irrevocably damaged. So it would be best if, after careful explanation, Corvo would be the one to tell him.

“Garrett, I know it’s going to worry you so just relax. I am going to sort this out, and nothing bad is ever going to happen to you.”

Garrett’s mouth went dry and he clenched the sheets on the bed in preparation. “Go on.”

“They told Basso that if he doesn’t tell them where I am then they’re going to,” a pause while Corvo swallowed, “They’re going to find you. But it’s fine because I’m going to-”

“They _what_?!”

In all fairness, Corvo had expected something much worse. Maybe he could have worded it better, though.

Garrett sat up suddenly, ignoring that the sudden movement agitated all of his injuries, eyes wide, breathing heavily, not sure whether to lay into Corvo or just cower under the sheets and scream into the pillow. He barely registered Corvo’s concerned face and reassuring tone of voice telling him repeatedly that _there’s nothing they could do to hurt you_ before he doubled over in pain as the stitches pulled, an explosive coughing fit wracking his body, fighting desperately to catch his breath. He heaved and cried out as the pain from the sutures spiked mercilessly, each and every attempt at suppressing the hacking leading to more of the same punishment. It wasn’t long before he began to writhe in pain, worsening his state.

To Corvo, it felt like hours before Garrett finally calmed down enough to stop coughing and sit back in the bed against the pillows, a groan of pain leaving his lips and a resigned expression settling on his face as he closed his eyes. 

He stroked the top of Garrett’s head with his free hand for a moment, feeling the thief relax under his hands until he felt comfortable enough to assume that Garrett wasn’t simply going to pass out again. Then, moving as slowly as possible so as not to disturb him, he picked up the cup on the table again and went upstairs again looking for water. By the time he had come back, the bloodstains on the linen shirt were stark, clear as the dark circles underneath his eyes.

Corvo hurried over to Garrett, placing the cup on the table by the bedside and propped Garrett up again, flinching at the cries of pain and heaving breaths underneath his hands. It was very clear that more of Garrett’s stitches had ripped, and the bleeding wasn’t slowing, brewing serious concern in his mind. Garrett’s eyes were cloudy and far away, and responded sluggishly when Corvo tried to talk to him.

“Do you mind if I take a look?” He forced his voice to sound calm, refusing to betray the panic and stress that curled nastily in the back of his mind. 

Garrett didn’t respond, just let his eyes flick momentarily to Corvo’s face and then settled on the wooden boards above them, an implicit agreement to Corvo’s request. He shuffled as Corvo helped him with the linen shirt again, shuddering as the fabric pulled and tore at his wounds, as dried blood stuck to dried blood, peeling off red, revealing a raw, bruised array of wounds underneath. Nothing like how it had looked earlier. The neat stitching was now bloodied, messy, broken in large areas, leaving gaping lacerations. Corvo, speaking to Garrett casually in the hope that it might keep him (both of them) calm, retrieved a clean rag from one of the cupboards upstairs and poured some of the water from the cup over it, hoping that it was reasonably clean, before leaning in and dabbing at the injuries carefully, cleaning what he could off before the cloth became saturated with diluted blood and it became clear that he was going to have to do something about it. 

“I have to stitch this up,” Corvo said, hoping that Garrett would remain pliant and passive for a little while longer, “Do you have supplies?” He grabbed Garrett’s good hand and filled it with another, drier rag, pressed it to the worst injury, instructing him to keep pressure on it and not to let go. 

Garrett paused and nodded weakly, motioning to the same drawer that the bandages had come from earlier, and watched Corvo hurry from the bedside to the drawer, pick up what he could find, and rush back. He picked the bottle of poppy off the table and renewed the cup of water, pouring Garrett a dose and thrusting the cup into his hands, encouraging him to drink quickly and watching him intently as he downed the bitter liquid, before taking it from him and placing the cup back on the side. He patted him gently but insistently on the cheek. 

“Stay awake,” Corvo instructed and rolled up some of the spare bandages from the cupboard, coaxing it gently into Garrett’s mouth, making a mental note to find some more when he felt Garrett was safe enough to be left alone by himself, “Bite down.”

Garrett did as he was told, beginning to pant roughly against the pain of the open wounds, sweat beginning to bead on his forehead as it had when he had woken up after passing out. The panting turned to screams as Corvo quickly did his best of disinfecting the curved needle with what limited materials were afforded to him in the clocktower, double checked the wounds for any stray debris, and held the first wound closed with one hand, the other passing the needle through the flesh, shaking so badly that he pulled it through as quickly as possible without increasing the severity of the injury, and took a moment to steady himself before tying the first stitch and clipping the remainder of the thread with a small razor. 

He reached up with a bloody hand to give Garrett’s arm a reassuring squeeze for a minute, trying to ignore the agonised quivers underneath his own arms and the quiet “Please, stop”s but he persisted, hoping the poppy would do enough to take the edge off, at the very least. It was unavoidable. He had to pin Garrett down under his own bodyweight, or he was going to damage himself so much there wouldn’t be anything Corvo could do for him.

Choking back his own tears, Corvo reached back for the needle and completed a second stitch, just as messy as the first, with nowhere near the quality of the other stitches, the ones that the doctor had put in, but Corvo knew it would have to do. Hoped so, anyway.

He took the bandage roll and placed it gingerly back between Garrett’s teeth after noticing that he had dropped it, cleaned his hands again, and continued to work, disregarding the screams and yells threatening to break out from behind the gag. It was no wonder the locals thought the clocktower was haunted between this and all the screaming Garrett seemed to do in his sleep.

Somewhere between tending to the wounds, the poppy that Corvo had given to Garrett began to kick in, the screams dying down and reduced back into restless panting and glassy eyes, staring off into the distance, far away from the bed where Corvo was sat at his side, slowly sewing shut the broken wounds. Panting turned to the occasional groan when Corvo pushed the needle through his flesh and eventually, by the time Corvo was satisfied that the sutures were providing some modicum of benefit, Garrett had gone completely still, breath ragged, eyes still wide open, pricked bright with tears, bottom lip quivering. He had stopped struggling against the restraint of Corvo’s unshiftable bodyweight.

Corvo cleaned off what remained of the blood, rinsed his hands off, and then sat down again, picking up Garrett’s wrist to no response and felt for the pulse which he soon found was a fast, pattering thrum. Bad sign.

He guided Garrett’s torso down, pulling the pillows out from underneath his head and placed them underneath his feet, wrapping the blanket tightly around his body. Having placed a hand on his shoulder, he found that Garrett was shivering again, violently, but whether it was from pain or the blood loss, he wasn’t sure.

Unsure of what to do next, he tried talking to Garrett, thinking that maybe he was still awake, maybe he would be able to tell Corvo what he could do to make it feel better, maybe he could apologise for what he did. He wasn’t sure if he would ever forget the ordeal, nor forgive himself, but he tried anyway, maybe looking for closure for himself over closure with Garrett.

“Are you still with me?” he put on the calmest voice possible given the situation, which was hard. His voice cracked and he stopped for a moment, collecting himself before he permitted himself to continue, “How are you feeling?”

To his surprise, Garrett gave a small nod and a muffled “Mm-hm,” his lip quivering slightly, “I… wish you… hadn’t.”

Corvo squeezed his shoulder again. “Sleep,” he commanded, and felt Garrett slowly relax underneath his hand, the expression remaining pained and drawn into a frown that made him look far older than he actually was. Corvo waited for several more minutes, ensuring that Garrett was fully asleep, his chest slowly rising and falling and that the blood had stopped flowing, before allowing himself to feel what had been threatening to burst from him while stitching up Garrett’s wounds.

He needed to get out. The clocktower had suddenly become very hot and oppressive, the machinery above him thumping far too loud to be comfortable, the shifting of the birds in the rafters irritating him. He knew it wouldn’t hurt to leave for a few seconds, to feel the night air on his warm face and hands.

He climbed up to the window and jumped down, blinking the remainder of the journey onto the balcony, stumbling as he hit the floor, falling to his knees. He had to physically suppress a pained howl as the reality of what had just happened hit him in the throat, gripping his mouth with his hand hard enough to hurt, fat tears spilling over his cheeks and onto the wooden railings.

He hadn’t really had a choice as to whether he stitched Garrett’s wounds up or not; he had been bleeding heavily and they would have left a painful scar had they not been treated when they were, but that didn’t remove the sight of Garrett grasping at the bedsheets and the sounds of his frenzied screams, nor alleviate the guilt sitting heavily on his chest. He had asked him to stop, begged him. And Corvo had ignored the pleas.

He searched his coat pocket for the hip flask, going through pocket after pocket before finding it, only to remember that it was empty, and even if it wasn’t, it would have been filled with water only, so he put it back, disappointed, pulling out his foldable blade instead, turning it over slowly in his palm. The metal vibrated slightly in his hands in synch with the Outsider’s mark, the steel glinting in the light as he tipped it this way and that, watching the reflections of Stonemarket shine in the steel.

What Corvo would do to run it straight through the neck of whoever it was that had ordered all this to happen.

The tears had stopped, replaced by anger and sick fantasies of what he would do with them when he found them, when he found the Whalers who had been harassing Basso, how he would hurt them as they had hurt him, as they had hurt Garrett.

It was, however, certainly very strange that it was the Whalers who had tortured Garrett so brutally. Although he had definitely sustained a grudge against Daud for murdering Jessamine, the love of his life at the time and mother of his only child, Corvo had not considered him a sadistic person in any respect. He had never really known him particularly well, only going off what he heard on the streets, that the Knife of Dunwall was one of the most feared assassins in the city, but he had always been quick. Always been professional. To have several of his underlings, after his demise, torturing innocent people for what appeared to be no tangible reason would undoubtedly have disturbed him.

It wasn’t what Daud and the Whalers were known for in any respects, and that was what puzzled and terrified Corvo the most. These Whalers had to be a rogue faction, at brutal odds with Daud’s philosophy, and that made them very, very dangerous, especially considering they had asked for Corvo specifically. There was no doubt in his mind that they weren’t there to adopt him as their new leader. They were there to kill him.

_But surely they must have known._

A memory floated to the forefront of his mind as he continued to turn the sword over in his hands, and he stopped dead. They had already known he was in Dunwall. They had already made an attempt on his life. And this wasn’t in reference to the whole… _thing_... in the flooded district. 

The inn he had stayed in the night before he found Garrett had dredged up its own memories, stirred by the characteristic smell of beer, sweat and rain, reminded him painfully of a fight or a scramble, before the cool night air on his face. He must have been drugged, must have had something put in his drink to not even be able to recall such a large portion of that night and the following day, but the characteristic boots and coats stood out in his mind among the darkness and the drunken, swooping sensation in his head. He wasn’t sure how he had managed to get away.

He finished turning the blade over in his hands and twirled it, sheathing it in his belt quickly. The tears on his cheeks had dried, leaving the tear tracks tight and dry against the rest of his face. It was undeniable at this point that he had feelings for Garrett, that the process of stitching him up had hurt Corvo almost as much as it had hurt the Master Thief, that the butterflies in his stomach weren't just a coincidence or a product of sleep deprivation and stress. It pained him, although he knew that it was completely understandable and appropriate given the current… situation... to know that Garrett would likely never feel the same way. He might even hate him after the stitching.

He stifled tears again as another breath hitched in his throat. It would be inappropriate as it was, making a pass on Garrett while he was still so weak and vulnerable, might make him feel uncomfortable in his own home when he was completely helpless and unable to get away without relying on Corvo’s help. It would be wrong. But damn if he wasn’t tempted to at least express some kind of interest.

It was only when Corvo was completely satisfied that he wasn’t simply going to break down in front of Garrett again that he allowed himself to climb back up the scaffolding to the room in the top of the clocktower. Relieved, but not surprised, that Garrett was still fast asleep he picked up the first book he could get his hands on and returned to Garrett’s side, flipping through the pages distractedly, before absentmindedly reaching down to the bed and gripping Garrett’s hand, thumbing the back of his fingers gently in time with the rhythm of the machinery up above him. 

Garrett stirred in response, but did not wake, his breathing a lot slower and pulse much stronger than it had been before. Corvo looked up after a while and noticed his lips moving slightly as if he was talking to someone, silently as no sound escaped his mouth. He wondered who Garrett was speaking to in his dreams, what he was talking about, before returning to the book in earnest.

It was going to be a very long night.

\----------------------

The City

10 Days Prior

Corvo stepped over the fetid puddles of rainwater on the docks as the ship he had sailed on blew its horn twice and fired up the engines to make back to the Isles. It had been a pretty terrible journey, as a three-day boat ride in uncomfortably close quarters with an old man, eyes sunken, teeth rattling around in the disturbingly gaunt head, who had not only spent most of the time passed out on his bed, but had spent the rest of the journey peer-pressuring Corvo into trying a veritable assortment of foreign psychedelic drugs. He had never once believed that he would prefer the company of the Outsider more than anyone else in the world, but during the journey, he had wondered briefly if there was an Outsider shrine somewhere on the ship just so he could convince him to do away with the old man. A sacrificial lamb of sorts. Purely religion, of course, nothing personal. Corvo had nearly snapped at him more than once, wanting nothing more than to be allowed to wallow in his own misery and the green embrace of sea-sickness. He had nearly jumped for joy when the man had announced that he was staying on the ship to find his long-awaited love in the southern isles. Corvo had barely been able to restrain himself from giving the ship the middle finger as it floated off towards the horizon. Why had he allowed Sokolov to talk him into this again?

Corvo had not heard much of the Eternal City so far in his life. The compulsory history, political and military strategy lessons he had taken after ascending to the Royal Guard had informed him perfectly well of the exploits of the Empire and some of the other isles, and naturally he was well-versed in Serkonan history, but this little island, much too far off to the south of Bumfuck Nowhere was comfortably outside the confines of his knowledge. It was reasonable to assume that at some point he had overheard a guard or two talking about the island, but he didn’t really pay all that much attention to guards after _The Incident_.

He paced off to the side of the docks, sitting down among the anchors and crab pots, and took stock of himself, trying his level best to ward off the rest of the nausea gripping his stomach, head in his hands. He wasn’t sure exactly where to start, but he supposed it would be a good idea to find a plate of food, a place to stay, and allow himself to rest for a day before getting to work. It wasn’t even outside the realms of possibility that an innkeeper or tavern maid would know more about this master thief, would be able to point him in the right direction.

It wasn’t too long before the fishy smell became too much for his stomach, so he got to his feet and made his way inland, stopping in at a nearby shop and asking the shopkeeper for some information on where he could find an inn. The reply had been that there was a good one on the outskirts, and had given Corvo directions, albeit very convoluted ones, then Corvo dropped a couple of gold pieces into the shopkeeper’s hands and made his way back out onto the streets. 

It was quiet for such a large city. Although it was midday, the sun felt dim and the streets were perpetually dark. Nothing like Dunwall or Serkonos, in all their grubby glory. For its size, the number of people going about their daily activities was low, and whoever was out doing their business looked at Corvo with, at the very best, distrust. They clearly had a knack for singling out foreigners - and avoiding them accordingly. Corvo hitched his collar up and walked on, ignoring the furtive glances. He was only here for a few weeks, at most. He decided he could put up with the looks until then.

It took him a very long time to find the inn. It was fair to say that he was bad at navigating his way through new cities, especially ones as big and twisting as this one, and there had been far too many times that he had simply come across dead ends, or roads that looped back on themselves, or at least once a huge brothel named the House of Blossoms, where a courtesan had stopped him, practically rubbing herself on his coat, playing with his curls in her long fingers, with her hand outstretched asking him if he was looking for a good time. He was sure he had looked terrified in that moment and had simply turned and walked away without saying anything, deciding that no, this couldn’t be the right way, and he wasn’t going to ask for directions.

He was right about that one.

It was definitely dark by the time he arrived at the inn: he knew because he was no longer within the City proper, no buildings here loomed over him and cast shadows, and the open starry expanse of the night stretched in every direction above him, the moon suspended full and bright above the treetops. It was quite possibly the first time he had seen the moon in almost a week. 

The village that the inn resided in was small and compact, surrounded by trees and farms stretching miles out in every direction. There was a chapel at one end, shrouded in the night, and the tavern was set down the hill, and in contrast was alive, bright, full of people singing. Corvo knew he stuck out like a sore thumb wearing his bright Royal Guard uniform here, compared to the drab grey, brown and black clothing local to the area, and that his accent would out him as a Serkonan but he didn’t really care. He just wanted a place to rest.

The problems started with the innkeeper. Like his compatriots, very distrusting of foreigners, he narrowed his eyes when Corvo walked up to the desk and asked for a room for the week, looking him up and down, studying him, almost accusatively. 

“Where you from?” He asked after some deliberation, and Corvo paused, not letting the annoyance he already felt from being treated as an outsider seep into his voice. Not even a full day and he was getting tired of the locals. It was a new record. 

“How about we keep that one under wraps?” Corvo replied, handing him a comparatively large amount of gold, at which the innkeeper’s eyes opened wide in in shock, before quickly grabbing it, stashing it in his coat pocket and writing down a fudged name and address in a thick ledger, yellowed and battered from years of use. He nodded and turned, quite clearly turning the coins over and over between the wizened fingers in his pocket, retrieving a thick key from the rack behind the desk and handed it over, still scowling. Corvo simply scowled back and turned on his heel, tramping up the stairs and into his room, trying to ignore the singing of the crowd below. Hopefully they would dissipate before it got too late and Corvo would be able to get some sleep. 

It was far too late to be asking about anything right now. Far too late to be doing anything but sleeping. He laid down on the scratchy sheets, staring up into the ceiling, trying to ignore the drinking songs bellowed below him by dozens of drunk men. 

The next morning, after he had woken up, he went downstairs dutifully in search of information pertaining to his target, as commanded by the General, finding the bar in surprisingly good working order and an even more surprisingly awake and functional barman. Asking about the Master Thief had not earnt him anything more than another suspicious look and a poster ripped from the board behind him: the same one that the General had handed to him back in Dunwall. Not much help. So he left the inn, walked around the City for the day, looking for clues.

The first day, he had not found anything, and returned to the inn that night in a dark mood, hungry and tired and discouraged. The second day hadn’t really been much better.

The third day had him wandering around the clocktower plaza in the middle of the City, among the Watchmen who walked lazily from post to post and shoppers browsing leisurely. Corvo was very much at the end of his tether, having spent night on three days wasting time, asking around for information and gaining little more than annoyed or suspicious glances, raised eyebrows, slammed doors. Maybe it wasn’t the best course of action, but the General hadn’t really given him a lot of information to work with. Returning to the inn that evening, after a day of nothing but rain and disappointment, he was ready to return to Dunwall the next day. He wasn’t even sure if this sort of assassin-for-hire work was really for him.

He kicked off his boots and laid on the bed, staring up into the rafters above him. The sky outside was darkening, the rain intensifying, small leaks in the roof letting the occasional drop of rain fall onto the worn wooden floor. The pub downstairs was obviously becoming very busy. 

Hungry, he decided to go downstairs and eat in the tavern for once. It was grubby and full, but he decided, seeing as he was leaving for the Empire the next day, it probably couldn’t hurt. He hadn’t anticipated how busy it was. The room was jammed with men who had come in from a day of work, crowded around the bar, asking for pints of beer and spirits. And inevitably, Corvo had joined in after a fashion.

Corvo hadn’t really put two and two together and realised that the quietness of the tiny village didn’t really correlate with the huge number of men who were in the pub. There were only so many farms that brought in so much money in the area. And he hadn’t also realised that most of them were wearing the same uniform.

Most importantly, he hadn’t seen the one man towards the back of the tavern who had spotted and recognised Corvo, and was now jabbing his colleague in the ribs, pointing at the assassin who was now comfortably tipsy, his fingers slightly numb, his brain a little bit fuzzy, vision a little bit blurred. All it had taken was for Corvo to turn in annoyance at one of the other pub-goers and shove back for one of the men who had noticed him to slip through the crowd and drop a small vial of colourless liquid into his drink, before turning back towards the bartender.

Corvo had not noticed, and downed the rest of the drink without a fuss.

For someone who drank as much as Corvo did, he started feeling drunk and hot very quickly. The man who had annoyed him before pushed back in jest and suddenly Corvo was on his feet, gripping the other man by the collar, daring him to touch him again. 

This was very uncharacteristic.

Before Corvo knew where he really was, he was squaring up with the other man, grabbing onto what shirt he could force his hands to close around, spitting venomous words at the man in fury, lunging forwards drunkenly.

The man dodged and stepped around Corvo with ease, laughing at the pathetic attempt to fight. The bartender was yelling. The room was too hot.

He wasn’t sure exactly what had happened next, but then he was outside in the cool night air, soaked to his bones, surrounded by a lot of men wearing coats and boots that were familiar in some way but also unfamiliar, brandishing swords and pistols at him, demanding that he go with them or face death.

It was only now that Corvo twigged that something might be wrong. He tried to get a grip, to take stock of his surroundings, but he felt far too drunk to stop swaying, despite the fact that he’d had maybe two rounds, three tops. Corvo didn’t get this drunk off three drinks. He swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry, stepping to the side and willing himself not to fall over, staring at the men apprehensively.

And then, he did the only thing he could think of.

Knowing he had to escape, and fast, he turned and blinked off towards the forest down the road and ran for it, feet pounding against the mulch, tripping but not falling and sensing the slight pressure changes and popping behind him as whoever it was blinked after him, shouting frantically at each other as they ran.

“Don’t let him escape!”

Corvo’s breath burnt in his throat as he flew through the trees, weaving here and there; a combination of trying to break their lines of sight and an effect of the drug. He wasn’t sure what it was they had used on him but thankfully it didn’t seem too powerful. He had stayed awake thus far.

He blinked forward when he could, when there was a straight line of space devoid of trees and he knew he wouldn’t simply shoot into the trunks, but every time he did, there would be a fresh shout from behind him and whoever it was that was chasing him would inevitably get closer.

It felt like years before they were back in the City and running across rooftops. It was a huge risk. One false step and he would fall onto the cobblestones below and severely injure himself in the process, would inevitably be caught. The Watchmen walked here and there beneath the hunters and prey, blissfully unaware of what was going on above them.

Corvo was running across a balcony above a secluded shop window when he decided to change tack. Stopping in his tracks, he turned, unsheathing his sword clumsily, nearly dropping it in the process. There was no way he was going to be able to outrun them in this state: they had been gaining on him this whole time, his hide saved only by the fact that he had been doing more hiding than running, the chasers fooled by the nonsensical paths and zig-zagging steps he had taken through the City. But now the streets were narrow and straight, there was only so much space to hide in, and there were too many of them for him to lose at once. 

He had forgotten to put his mask on, but it was too late to realise that.

A group of five men turned a corner in front of him and slowed, seeing Corvo stood on the balcony with his sword outstretched. Where running had failed him, he hoped fighting might save him from such a small group. He twirled the sword in his hands, the action taking far more work than it should have done.

The men attacked simultaneously from one direction. This was a maneuver Corvo knew like the back of his hand.

He had always considered swordplay more of a dance than anything else. There was no way the graceful movements that flowed so well into each other and meshed like ballet between his hands and feet could be compared to the sluggish, ugly movements of broadswords men or the foolish lunges of those who wielded longswords. He certainly felt like that was what he was doing now, instead of the well-practiced steps he took when he was otherwise sober. Must be muscle memory.

At least two of them were down when three of the men looked at each other for a split second before they jumped on him, pulling him back down onto the balcony, before the whole thing buckled and creaked dangerously. The men looked at each other for a split second in terror before the balcony collapsed underneath them and Corvo was slammed onto the floor, bouncing as the ground hit him and the breath was knocked brutally from his chest.

He was sure he had lost consciousness for a second or two but when he came to, the three men who had jumped at him were laid around him, tangled in each other and himself. 

There was no way the Watch hadn’t heard that. He had to move.

He wobbled to his feet and willed himself not to be sick as he took one unsteady step, and then another. He was wet with blood, sweat and rain, his head still ringing from the fall, the side that he had landed on screaming in pain. It was nothing short of a miracle that he hadn’t landed on his head, and judging by the quick once-over check, hadn’t broken or severely injured anything. He knew he’d wake up with bruises the next day though.

There was a shout behind him. He turned, finding two of the men crawling to their feet, leaving their compatriot on the ground, who was covered in a huge amount of blood and struggling to breathe. It wasn’t so much of a chase any more, much more of a stumbling crawl, but the two men continued to follow Corvo through the winding streets, hoping beyond all hopes that they wouldn’t bump into the Watch.

It took him a long time to lose them. One dropped a short time after crossing a bridge, succumbing to the injury he received after falling from the balcony but the other persisted, on and on and on until they were both exhausted and the moon was high in the sky, the rain long since fizzled out.

It was a while before Corvo trusted himself to blink onto a roof. The swimming feeling in his head was getting ever worse, and he doubled over as soon as he crawled to safety well above the streets and retched until it felt like there was nothing left inside him. At this point, he seemed to have lost the assassin who had been following him, but he felt insecure enough to move on, knowing he was going to pass out, imminently.

His search for a safe haven led him back to the clocktower plaza, which was swarming with guards by now. Looking around, the only place he could see that might be safe was the clocktower, high above him. He stumbled over and took a chance, climbing up and up through scaffolding, taking one finally, gut-wrenching chance and blinking onto the balcony high above. 

In one final show of strength, he mustered the little energy he had left and drew a fist back and drove it into the window, hoping that he could crack the glass and get inside, where it would be safer than just passing out on the balcony, but to his dismay, it held.

The last thing Corvo saw before he dropped was a brazier flickering away. Strange, he thought, that an abandoned tower would contain a lit brazier. Even stranger that he could outrun enemies while drugged.

He felt the cool glass touch his forehead and he slid down it, letting his mind drift, hoping that his coat would provide some semblance of protection from the cold of the oncoming night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everybody _YEET_ for weird pacing.  
>  I wasn't sure where to put it and felt it was better now than never


	16. Auldale

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Garrett wakes up (again). We catch up with Thadeus. The Whalers look for food and run into some trouble.

Garrett was hurting when he woke up again, but wasn’t quite sure why. The previous day had, at the time, felt like it was going well, like he had begun to feel - not normal - but as if he was beginning the journey to some semblance of it. His fingers and arms and torso and _everything else_ had still been in pain to varying extents, but he had thought it might have been getting better. Now, despite lying on his back with his feet in the air and the warm afternoon light filtering onto his face, it felt like someone had just gone and ripped him open again and left salt in the wound to boot. 

He laid there for several minutes, having realised that his body refused to move in any capacity, and waited for the fog to clear from his eyes and brain, allowed the room to stop spinning around him and the nauseous clenching of his stomach to lift before he shifted, sensation flooding back into his battered extremities. His left hand was hot and sweaty, as if something had been clamped around it, and looking over at it, he found Corvo sat on a chair at the side of his bed, slumped over his own stomach fast asleep, grasping his hand, carefully avoiding the splinted fingers and missing fingernails. Normally, Garrett wouldn’t have been a fan of the physical contact, but the warmth was clearly doing something to improve the pain and he wasn’t in any state to make a fuss as it was, so he stared up into the ceiling, drifting back off into sleep.

He was woken by his own screams.

Corvo had moved before Garrett was even awake and sat by his head, patting his face insistently, begging him to wake up, his left hand firmly sat on the thief’s chest on the off-chance that he bolted upright and injured himself yet again. Garrett did no such thing, feeling his thudding heart gradually slowing under Corvo’s hand and the ragged pain in his vocal chords still buzzing. The room was slightly darker than before, marginally colder, but Garrett wasn’t sure if that was because of the unpleasant remnants of the night terror. Momentarily, he thought he might have dreamt that he woke up earlier to the warm afternoon glow and Corvo’s hand wrapped around his own.

“You were screaming for help.”

The dark circles under Corvo’s eyes looked so much worse than how they were the day before. Garrett allowed his gaze to linger on his face before looking down, searching for his own feet among the mass of pillows and sheets. He didn’t remember the dream in and of itself, but he did remember the terror and pain that gripped his whole body mercilessly. He wasn’t sure what to say to Corvo. That this was normal? That he shouldn’t worry? There were three agonising minutes of silence before Corvo tried again.

“What happened, Garrett? Let me help you.”

That was a hard no. Garrett had to deflect. He withdrew his hand from the edge of the bed and laid it back down on his stomach, looking around as if confused. “What happened? Yesterday, I mean.”

Corvo got up and returned to the chair where he took a moment to check Garrett’s pulse before removing the pillows from underneath his feet and sliding them underneath his head, supporting Garrett’s weight while he did so. “You tore your stitches. I had to sort it out. Apparently it was painful.”

Corvo felt he had done a pretty good job of hiding the hurt that the ordeal had put him through. It had, in no way of course, compared to Garrett’s but he obviously hadn’t remembered it, so Corvo held onto that, hoping that he wouldn’t recall any more information as he became more alert. He continued to talk, distracting himself from images of the previous night.

“Does it still hurt? Can I get you anything?”

 _Of course it still hurts,_ Garrett thought to himself with some annoyance, but instead shook his head, not willing to spend more time floating in a weird state of semi-consciousness, his mind far away doing something else. Although Corvo had proven himself mostly trustworthy over the past few days, Garrett still felt vulnerable around him, and the less time he spent under the numbing influences of sedative drugs, the more comfortable he would feel. He knew Corvo wouldn’t give him a choice if he was at the point of screaming in pain again, but until then, he was more than happy to reject the medication. 

A brief flash of concern crossed Corvo’s face as he settled into the chair before he shrugged and sat back, stretching his legs out and closing his eyes. He looked like he was going to pass out from exhaustion. Whatever had happened had clearly been very draining, Garrett thought. But there was one thing he felt he had to address before moving on.

“When I woke up,” he began, unsure of how to phrase the question, “You were holding my hand. Was that a mistake, or…?”

Corvo felt his face heat up. “Yes,” he admitted, “It’s a bad habit, I’m sorry if it made you feel uncomfortable, I won’t do it again.”

Garrett paused while he collected his feelings together, then shook his head, shrugging lightly, “It’s fine. Apparently the warmth helps. Not sure why.”

It had taken him a lot of emotional effort to admit that, but having Corvo clasp Garrett’s fingers in his hands was much easier than simply accepting being dosed up on poppy. Asking Garrett for permission with his eyes, Corvo gingerly took up Garrett’s hands in his own and carefully held them there on top of the spread, ensuring he didn’t accidentally brush the damaged extremities, thumbing the top of his hand gently.

It was a while before the anxiety at being touched dissipated from Garrett’s throat. Usually, he felt stressed and anxious at the prospect of having someone else so close that he could feel the heat coming off their skin, but when it relieved pain in a gentler way than sedatives, what else could he do? He had to fight the urge to shake Corvo off and battled the feeling that he was being watched from his mind, looking anywhere but in Corvo’s eyes. Funnily enough, he didn’t seem to mind it too much. The olive tone of his skin contrasted gently with the white flesh and blue vessels of Garrett’s own, and the thief became very conscious of how the hands felt fleshy and soft, but the fingertips were so calloused, wondering what he had worked as before he came to the City. In the short time Corvo had been gripping Garrett’s hands, the aching in his bones had improved. It hadn’t improved significantly, but it had definitely improved. He exhaled in relief and laid back, still avoiding Corvo’s gaze. Memories of the previous day began to seep back into his mind, recalling the coughing fit, the stitches, his own screaming. It might have been the temporary pain relief or it might just have been the remnants of the drowsiness from when he woke up in a panic, but the memories didn’t bother Garrett. At the time, he knew he would have been begging Corvo to stop doing what he was doing, but now, he was just glad he was no longer in agony.

He knew that the guilt was eating Corvo up, though.

“It’s okay for… for yesterday. It’s fine. Thanks for stitching them up. I’m glad I let you in.”

That last part had come as a bit of a surprise to both of them. Garrett felt Corvo still around his hand for a second and then laugh, drawing Garrett’s perplexed gaze.

“I was worried you’d hate me after all that. I’m glad it doesn’t bother you too much.”

Garrett dared a half-smile, still painfully aware of how much he looked like shit, “Yeah, well don’t get too used to it,” he gave Corvo’s hand the best approximation of a squeeze that was possible given the circumstances, an uncoordinated, clumsy contraction of his thumb and the muscles around the edges of his palm, wincing slightly. “You should know that I work alone. And if you plan on staying here any longer, I want to know how you plan on sorting out those bastards that were giving Basso shit.”

Corvo wasn’t exactly sure if he’d expected Garrett to remember what he’d told him yesterday, but was glad of the fact. It would be disastrous if he had to deal with another bad reaction like the one Garrett had the day before, so he shuffled forward, still holding Garrett’s left hand in his own, and looked him dead in the eye. “Basically, they told Basso that they wanted him to give them information on where I am, you know that, right?” he waited for the confirmation before continuing, “Well they told him they’d be back in a week, to give him time to think over it and update any information he had. I’m planning on trapping or ambushing them in some way. It’s a bit of a complicated story but if my assumptions are correct, they shouldn’t be too difficult to take out, especially if there are only five or so of them.”

“And what are these assumptions?” Garrett asked with one eyebrow raised, “This something I should know about?”

Corvo regrouped, thinking up some way to pass this off as anything but outright telling Garrett he had worked as an assassin for some time, “It was a cult, or a group, or… something. Their leader imbued some of them with powers, and when he died, their powers started fading too. If I’m correct then they should be weak and easily overcome.”

“What sort of powers? How do you know this? I hope you don’t mean you were a part of this group yourself.” There was doubt in Garrett’s voice, which gripped Corvo’s heart with guilt.

“I never had anything to do with them,” it wasn’t strictly a lie, but it was definitely stretching the truth, “I read a lot about them and remember when they roamed one of the districts in the city at the time. They could do stuff like… pulling objects without touching them, disappearing from one place and reappearing in another… I think some of them could stop time but obviously I have no proof of that-”

Garrett’s eyes widened and his jaw clenched, “Didn’t you do something like that when we got back to the clocktower? I fell down the stairs and you appeared in front of me.”

 _This is bad news_ , Garrett thought. Something wasn’t quite adding up about Corvo. It was reasonable to believe that, having lived and come from the same city as the group that had attacked him, he would know some of the most basic details about them, but to have a similar power of his own was extremely concerning. He watched as Corvo fumbled for words, and withdrew his hand carefully.

“I didn’t think you remembered that. I know it looks bad, but I have nothing to do with them. I can do what I do because I was granted my own powers by someone different. The man who shared his powers with this group? His name was Daud. I didn’t even learn of Daud’s existence until well after I’d received my own.”

Garrett dropped his gaze angrily. “You know, you don’t exactly make it easy for me to believe you. You just told me that these magical powers exist, and I wasn’t hallucinating on that night, and not only that, but the people who want me dead do too. So what, does everyone have these powers where you come from?”

“No,” Corvo confirmed, “It’s more of a religious thing.”

“I didn’t think you were religious.”

“I’m not.”

The expression that crossed Garrett’s face would have been hilarious if the situation weren’t so tense. His face went from pale to purple to red as his mind tried to process what was going on. 

“What the fuck am I supposed to believe then?”

“Garrett, whatever I tell you, you’re probably not going to believe me. Honestly, if I could recommend anything, I’d recommend not trying to understand any of it because I don’t understand either. I wish it had never happened to me, I wish I’d never been given this ‘gift’, but here we are, and if I can use it to pull every last miserable strand of life from those bastards then I will do so, with _pleasure_.”

If anything was going to convince Garrett, then that statement would be it. There was genuine hatred in Corvo’s voice, a deep-seated, seething, blistering, burning hatred. Garrett had seen it before, had experienced it himself enough to know that those sort of feelings weren’t simply fabricated on a whim. It was deeply concerning to the thief that Corvo had been hiding this information from him this whole time, hadn’t immediately been upfront the group who had taken and injured him so badly, forced him to wonder what else Corvo was hiding.

If only he could get to Basso and discuss this together, in private.

At least there was one positive coming from this.

“So what you’re saying is, when you do confront those people-”

“Whalers,” Corvo corrected Garrett, “They’re called Whalers.

Garrett nodded and continued, “When you do confront those Whalers, it shouldn’t be any sort of contest, right? You’ll easily outmatch them.”

“I hope so, Garrett,” Corvo said in agreement, “I hope so. I won’t let them hurt you or Basso.”

“And how long is it until you’re planning on trapping them?” 

Corvo looked up, thinking hard. The days had been merging into each other and he had lost track of time somewhere. “4 days now, I think.”

“You’d better prepare then.”

\----------------------

Thadeus was not known for being a patient man, but when the situation required it of him, he would wait for returns, albeit reluctantly. There had always been some level of patience involved in the job - waiting for the right time to spring a trap on a particularly annoying criminal, for instance, but as a rule, if he wanted something, he demanded a certain level of speed from those who were delivering it, especially if he was paying them.

It had been a very long time since he had contacted the Masked Felon in Dunwall, and as far as Thadeus or the Watch were aware, no progress had been made on the job at all. He understood that when the Master Thief had been caught and dispatched, there would surely be some kind of sign or indication that he was no longer going to be a problem - even the cessation or reduction in the City’s rampant larceny and burglary would be enough of a sign for him. It was entirely probable, in his mind, that the assassin had traced the Master Thief back to his home and ended him there, out sight for everyone else, which would make his job significantly easier, but all the same, something told him that it had not yet been carried out.

It had been a month, and it had been an implicit agreement that the work would have been carried out quickly. Thadeus didn’t just _throw_ money at people for jobs not to be done, and those who crossed him would surely come to regret it.

He knew finding the assassin wasn’t going to be an easy task. It had been hard enough contacting Anton Sokolov in the first place, but at least he had been a reliable and public contact. Now, presumably, the assassin was hiding somewhere in his City, probably hadn’t given his name away (not that Thadeus even knew it) and might not have shown his face. So, instead of contacting someone directly, he decided to use the best tools at his immediate disposal: the Watch.

The following morning he had some of his best officers come to his office so he could ask them to look for information. It was a long shot, but it was the best one he had given the circumstances. The officers shuffled uncomfortably in front of his as he sketched out the mask and handed it to one of the men while the others crowded around it, clamouring for a look.

“I need you to find this man,” Thadeus began, walking back to his desk and sitting down, “I asked something of him at great expense and he has not delivered. I know nothing about him other than he may be wearing this mask. Feel free to… ah, _interrogate_ anyone who looks suspicious or you suspect might be sheltering him. I don’t think this is the case, but we don’t know that yet. This is Watch business and it would benefit the City greatly if you do this.” a short pause as he paced back and forth, as the Watchmen observed silently from the lower level, a few steps down from Thadeus’ desk, “Just find the bastard and bring him to me.”

These Watchmen knew what Thadeus did to men who asked questions, so despite the protestations at having their time wasted for what seemed like a personal vendetta, they squashed any feelings they might have had about the matter and then filed out the door, slowly.

“And one more thing,” Thadeus interrupted just before the last officer had made his way out the door, “If you find anyone sheltering him, you have my permission to execute them on sight.”

The Watchman waited for Thadeus to finish, before nodding his head once to confirm and then exited, shutting the door behind them, leaving Thadeus alone in the silence of the office. He had no intention of harming him, severely in any case - that wouldn’t be wise given his extensive contacts in Gristol - but he needed to, at the very least, find out what he was doing. Encourage him to get on with the job. And if not, then he could send him back where he came from.

Thadeus was restless. He paced to and fro in the office as the rays of sunlight from the window slid slowly across the floor, as various Watchmen visited him throughout the day with reports and questions and he plotted away, making hurried notes on a large paper map. He knew that, if his officers were doing a good job and they knew what was good for them, at this point the whole Watch would be looking for information pertaining to the Masked Felon. He didn’t really care if that involved breaking down doors to people’s homes and businesses, if it was what had to be done.

The day passed slowly, and no news came. The officers who he had talked to that morning were nowhere to be seen, had not appeared at his door or passed on information to the Watchmen who had. Only when it was getting dark did Thadeus give up for the day, furious that nobody had updated him, and planned the dressing-down he was going to give to those particular officers the next day.

But that was never the case. 

When he arrived at his office the next day, there were two Watchmen stood outside, waiting for him, looking exhausted. One of them, with dark circles underneath his eyes and a slight shake in his leg handed a piece of paper to Thadeus, who took it and read it over. 

“We found this, sir. Thought it might be of some interest.”

There was a protracted pause as the General re-read the wanted poster several more times, tapping his foot, before he looked up, unlocked the door to his office, and swung it open.

“Come in,” he said to the two Watchmen, who suddenly looked noticeably less comfortable, “We need to talk.”

The pair shuffled behind him into the office and he walked over to the chair, sitting down and rubbing the edge of the paper between his fingers. This was a completely unexpected turn of events.

“Where did you find this?” he asked them, voice low, once he was sure the door was closed behind them. 

They looked at each other and dropped their eyes anxiously as one of them replied: a short, skinny many with short mousy-brown hair, similar rattish facial features, and a nervous, stuttering voice, “In a tavern near the outskirts, sir. Quiet village. Innkeeper let us take this.”

“Don’t tell me you just left that tavern without questioning him.”

The men flinched at the accusation and went silent again, looking at each other and down at their feet. “We asked him if anyone had any more information on who he was or where he went.”

“...And?”

“He said he was causin’ trouble in the tavern around a week or so ago, but he didn’t make the poster. Had it given to him by some mystery man in a gas mask.”

Thadeus scrunched the poster up in his left hand and slammed it back down on the desk, causing the Watchmen to jump violently. “Mystery man? You think to ask about the mystery man?”

The lad shook his head, going white as the General loomed over him, “No sir. He seemed to want us out of his tavern as quickly as possible. Told us to take it and… eh, _fuck off_.”

In a second, Thadeus had sprung out of his seat and lunged at the Watchman, one hand grasped tightly around the front of his uniform as the other recruit jumped out of the way, momentarily looking like he was going to try and fight the General off and get him to release his friend, before thinking better of it.

“And you actually listened to him, you useless ball of shit? Why is it so hard to get my men to do as they’re fucking told? Go back and bring him here, I don’t care if he tells you to fuck off, you bring him to me or I’ll see you and your friend in the fucking ground.”

He released the officer and watched them scurry out the door, leaving Thadeus alone in the office once again. He needed to know who the man who was distributing these posters were, why they were doing it, and what it had to do with the Masked Felon. It had been a risk employing a paid assassin to work on his own turf, but he hadn’t expected it to backfire so badly. If he was causing trouble in the City, then Thadeus knew he had to catch him, connections be damned. It was a very good opportunity to drum up support from the public, to show that he was doing his job right, and if he wasn’t to have the Masked Felon hanged, then at least it would be another source of Black Tax. In short, it was a source of one or two things: good publicity, and money. And everyone knew that publicity naturally led to the other.

He sat back down again and leant back in the chair, his mind whirring away. Before he could do anything else, he needed to have a word with the innkeeper, find out where the assassin had gone, and then work out how to find the man who gave the innkeeper the poster. 

A rogue thought popped into his head unexpectedly. It could be a coup. He realised that they could be working together to bring him down, to unseat him for some reason, whether it be for wealth, or power, or control. He had to stamp this out, and quickly before it had chance to spread.

This changed everything.

\----------------------

The living situation had now got so bad in the Whaler faction that scouting parties had been sent out to search for food and medical supplies. Despite Alexander’s repeated attempts at calming the group with repeated promises of Corvo Attano’s imminent murder and their return to greatness, the Whalers had become rowdy and angry very quickly, as if a match had been struck in a room full of gas. It had all gone up in flames.

So here he was, out somewhere in the City, in a district he had never heard of before, hunting through the houses of rich and esteemed men who had plenty of food and treasures with Cass, Pavel and several other Whalers. He had been loathe to do it, but here they were, about to break into the house of what was supposed to be one of the richest men in the City.

“Auldale,” Cass said, her voice low, looking at Alexander in frustration after he asked her where they were, “It’s called Auldale. I told you before.”

They heard Pavel in the back struggling to stifle a snicker and Alexander whipped around, glaring daggers at him, before turning back to Cass, who was on her knees working the lock on the window with a lockpick and tension wrench. Although the curtains to the house were drawn so they couldn’t be sure who was inside, they had spent some hours before scoping out the house and determining the best point of entry, and decided that this was it. The light behind the curtains had very clearly gone off at some point, the lively chatter that was muffled by the thick pane of glass had died down, and only then did they feel empowered to make a move.

Cass was clearly struggling with the lockpicks though.

“Give them here,” Pavel said after much frustrated grunting and a sigh, and brushed Cass out of the way, carefully grabbing the lockpick and tension wrench off her. “Fucking amateurs.”

He inserted the tension wrench and then the lockpick, carefully sawing back and forth with the upper pick, one eye closed, his tongue poking out from between his teeth. It was making a hell of a lot of noise, the scraping of the pins against the pick scarily audible in the night air.

“Do you want us to get caught?” Cass whispered angrily, chastising him for his careless work, “You’re making a fucking racket. They’ll slit our throats.”

Pavel continued to rake at the lock, his mind very clearly somewhere else. He turned to Alexander briefly, looking up at him before returning to the lock, the concentration still evident on his face. “Alex, about that fence.”

Alexander looked back, head cocked in interest, “Mm-hm?”

“Did you ever think he might be planning a counter-attack? If he knows Attano then there’s a good chance he’s asked him to protect him. If they’re prepared then we could be putting ourselves in danger.”

Alexander watched as Pavel sawed at the lock ever more insistently, “I considered it, but was wondering what you thought about it. You’re better at this kind of strategy than I am.”

“Well,” Pavel continued, ignoring the frustrated sighs of the other Whalers, “The obvious answer would be to set a trap, wouldn’t it? Scope out his place and find something, or set something up, that ensures we take him by surprise. He’s too powerful, even alone, if he expects us to be coming.”

“You’re right. We’ll scope the place out tomorrow, see if Attano is there with him, sort out a plan. If he’s coming and going from the Crippled Burrick then we’ll have an opening, set a trap, surprise him. If he’s going to be there at any time, then it’s going to be when we said we’re coming back.”

Pavel nodded in response, still staring at the lock, “You can tell he felt threatened by it. Who wouldn’t, I guess? If he’s employing help then it’ll be then.”

Cass stepped into his vision, blocking the line of sight between Pavel and Alexander, angrily waving her hand, “Hurry up. We don’t have all night. We’re going to have to try something else, that window is not budging.

There was a sudden shift in Pavel’s weight and he turned his hand, the _click_ of the lock barely audible as he pulled the tension wrench a full ninety degrees and nudged the tips of his fingers underneath the sash, “You have a better plan?”

She watched him pull the window open, utterly defeated, standing with her arms crossed against her chest, not even bothering to dignify him with an answer. Pavel was clever, but he was arrogant as well. She supposed the arrogance was justified in some way: he outperformed most of the other Whalers purely due to the fact that he found ingenious ways to outwit his target, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that one day it would come back to bite him.

“For how rich these people are, you’d think they’d be able to afford a better security option. Like a guard, or a better lock or _something_. Let’s go. Alexander, we’ll talk about that plan later.”

He pulled the window open and climbed through, pulling the curtains open from the outside, poking his head through and looking around, briefly searching for any other guards and traps that they had happened to miss. Satisfied that his search had dredged up nothing, he climbed through the window and stepped onto the carpeted interior, ignoring the mud his boots were shedding and began to look around, taking it all in. Cass followed him, and then Alexander and the others, who kept the noise to a minimum. Cass had noticed that as a rule, the others tended to follow her word over Alexander’s, which she used to her advantage. She had ordered no weapons tonight. They were just there to get supplies.

Pavel was strolling around, looking at the various trinkets, paintings and pieces of furniture adorning the room, picking up the odd pen or pair of scissors or magnifying glass and looking carefully at them, before setting them back down when he saw the dirty look Cass shot him from across the room. “Just food and medicine.” she mouthed at him angrily, to which he shrugged and dropped his gaze. Damn if he wasn’t tempted.

They had agreed to split into two groups prior to the burglary. One team was to scour the ground floor, and the other was to check the basement, both in search of food. Cass was to scout the upstairs rooms for whichever medications or herbal remedies she could find, and then they would meet back outside at the turn of the hour, when the clock struck two. She had assigned Pavel to work with Alexander, hoping that he would be able to keep him in check and prevent him from taking any reckless action. 

Initially, she had wanted to leave him back at the house with those Whalers who were too sick or weak to carry out the task, but she had been reminded of the situation and decided that the benefit of the extra pair of hands vastly overrode the increased risk of his poor temperament. In demanding that no weapons were to be brought onto the job, she hoped that she had minimised that risk, that nobody would get hurt, nothing would get damaged, and they could return quickly and safely. 

“Downstairs,” she mouthed at one group, pointing down, “Kitchen,” she commanded the other, before pulling her mask down over her face and entering the corridor, leaving the others to their tasks and focusing on her own. She suspected that any medications in the house would be kept upstairs in the bathroom, would be easy enough to grab and leave with, but at the very worst, some would be kept in bedrooms with occupants. There had been no evidence of guards so she wasn’t particularly worried about running into anyone dangerous or unsavoury, and she had agreed with the others than in the off chance that someone did wake up and find them, they would just abandon the food and run. Simple.

It wasn’t difficult to find the staircase. It was a huge thing, ornate, covered in a deep red carpet, beautifully crafted rails skirting the inside of the staircase, spiralling up to the next floor. Appreciating the beauty of the thing, but not the lack of cover, she hurried upwards, transversing into the shadows as soon as she managed to find a clear run at it, taking a moment to collect herself before pressing on, exploring the corridor. 

There were three rooms, the doors to which were all shut. The windows at the side of the corridor lacked curtains, so allowed moonlight in, splashing across the wooden floor in great silver waves. Continuing to keep to the shadows, she crept across the floor and took her mask off briefly to look through the keyhole, studying the inside of the room. 

It was a bedroom. Had a small, single bed, with a fancy desk and chair, the owner quite clearly asleep judging by the lack of movement aside from the slow rise and fall of the figure under the blanket. She noted the window near the bed as a precaution and moved on to the next room, once again staring in through the keyhole. This one was a master bedroom, two occupants, once again both asleep, a large dresser and mirror adorning one side of the room and a window facing outwards, this one much larger than the window in the single room.

The third room was a bathroom, after all. Sighing in relief, after studying the contents of the room through the keyhole, she pulled the mask back down over her face and entered the room, swinging the door open painstakingly slowly, careful of potential creaks and groans that were so commonplace with old houses like this, hoping that the hinges weren’t rusty. As soon as there was a gap large enough for her to squeeze in through, she took the opportunity, re-entering the shadows and shutting the door behind her again, standing up and stretching. For the overall size of the house, the bathroom wasn’t that large. Containing a porcelain bath, a silver towel rail and sink basin over a cupboard, it was clear that there wasn’t really anywhere else to look, unless the occupants of this house were particularly eccentric.

It hadn’t really crossed her mind until now that the house was very large for a family of three. She knew there must be another floor, probably filled with more bedrooms, maybe even a bathroom up there as well, and made a mental note to check the floor above before she left. 

She was halfway through searching the basin cupboard when she first heard footsteps on the staircase, sounding like they were coming up from the ground floor. Confused, but still terrified, she pocketed what medications she could find, looked around for a hiding spot, and upon finding nowhere to hide, she took a wild chance and flattened herself into the shadows behind where the door would swing if it came open. It was hard to hear anything over the sound of the blood pounding in her ears, but the footsteps were quite clearly making their way across the landing, slowly, meandering here and there, but they were indeed approaching.

She prepared to run. Gripped the wall.

But when the door swung open, she found only Alexander.

Furious, she grabbed him by the front of the coat and yanked him through the door, pulling off his mask and stared him down, her voice low. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

He pushed her hand off and stared back, “Pavel sent me. Says we’re done collecting food, we don’t have enough manpower to carry the rest but it should do for a while.”

She let him go and gripped her chest, willing her pounding heart to slow down, sighing in relief, “Alright… fine. I think I’m done here too. Let me just check the cabinet for more stuff and then we can go.”

Alexander nodded in response and pulled his mask back down over his face, pressing himself back into the shadows, watching Cass as she continued to rummage through the cabinet, pocketing anything of interest: bandages, remedies, herbs, anything that could potentially be of use. After a while, she closed the doors, stuffing what remained into the various pouches clipped to her belt and turned to face him again, nodding.

“Let’s go.”

They were about to leave the room when Alexander flung an arm out behind him, tapping Cass insistently on the shoulder, forcing her to stop dead in her tracks. She shot him a look and cocked her head, implicitly questioning the sudden standstill, and he held a finger out in front of where his lips would be if his face wasn’t covered, pointed to the door, and then moved his index and middle finger across his other palm in a ‘walking’ motion.

Cass’ heart dropped. Surely nobody was going to be up and about unless the other two groups downstairs had made too much noise and disturbed the occupants. She pulled her own mask off again and approached the keyhole, staring through the opening into the dark hallway. Whoever it was that was moving around wasn’t from the two other rooms that she’d searched earlier, meaning that it was likely that they had descended from the upper floor of the building, confirming her earlier suspicions about the layout of the house. Regardless of where they had come from, they were walking straight towards the bathroom. It was a man. Fairly tall, broad-shouldered but not muscular. It would be tricky to slip past him.

Alexander had already got into position behind the door frame, ready to try and slip behind him and out the other side when he entered, and Cass did the same, crouching behind him, ready to follow and make a break for it if he noticed. She was planning the escape route in her mind, reminding herself of the route that she had taken to get to the bathroom, ready to pull Alexander in line. 

She didn’t initially notice the silver glint in Alexander’s hand as it was withdrawn from beneath his coat, but it caught the moonlight and reflected the silver in her eyes, temporarily disorientating her. She followed the source and found him holding a short dagger in his right hand, shaking slightly in anticipation. 

There wasn’t much time to react.

“Alex!” she said, voice brimming with whispered fury, “I said no fucking weapons!”

He didn’t have time to give her anything but a dirty look before the door swung open and the man walked in.

Cass wasn’t exactly sure what else she had expected. She grabbed blindly for the dagger. The man noticed them instantly and began to scream, lunging for Cass in the darkness. She relinquished the weapon from Alexander’s grasp and dodged to the side, failing to avoid the occupant’s grip. Alexander sidestepped the man’s mass, stepped behind him, and lodged the dagger in his throat, grabbing Cass’ hand and pulling her out the door after him, leaving the occupant lying on the bathroom floor, bleeding heavily from his neck, choking on his own blood, crying for help. She suppressed a scream in her own chest and followed Alexander, pounding down the beautiful stairs, yelling for the other Whalers to _get out_ and run for safety. 

The other two groups joined them as they were climbing out the window, Pavel clamouring his way towards Cass and Alexander, furiously demanding to know what had happened, helping to pull the remaining Whalers out from the window and climbing up the nearest tree, transversing onto the rooftops, pulling Alexander after them where they began to run together as a group, two other occupants of the house now screaming at them from the window, all the lights now on, the Watch soon to be swarming the streets.

“What the fuck did you do?” Pavel said again, struggling to keep up with Alexander and Cass, waving his hand in front of her face, “What happened? Did you fucking kill someone?”

“No, Pavel, what the fuck?” she responded angrily, “Alex killed someone. We’re in deep fucking trouble now. What the fuck were you thinking?” she turned to Alexander, who was looking dead in front of him, no remorse in his eyes, “What were you thinking?”

“You really think now is the best time to discuss this?” he said in response, “When the fucking _Watch_ is about to swarm and we’re here on the roof with absolutely no cover?”

“Yes, actually, I do,” she said in response, pulling him behind a chimney stack, grabbing the dagger from his hand and throwing it across the roof where it skittered to a halt and landed in a gutter, “Pavel, you stay here. The others can go. Get the food back to the house.”

The Whalers did as she asked, running off back towards the house, some transversing across the rooftops, some simply running and jumping from roof to roof, until they were very much alone together, the shouts from below rising as they approached the scene of the crime. Cass dragged Pavel and Alex to their knees to avoid detection and she rounded on them, face red, eyes brimming with unbridled fury.

“Alex, I said no _fucking_ weapons!” she repeated, willing herself not to strike him, “Why can’t you just do what you’re fucking told for once? This is exactly why I didn’t want you coming with us. How much more difficult do you think this is going to make our lives now?”

He shrugged, and clenched his fists, offended at the confrontation, “Cass, he was going to _kill_ you. You saw him, he lunged at you.”

“Yeah and he was unarmed you slow bastard,” she said in return, “I was going to make a break for it, I was never in danger, but now we are because you couldn’t just leave the weapons at home for once. What is it? Do you like killing people? Do you get some kind of sick pleasure out of it you psychopathic son of a bitch?”

They all knew that that was the case. She heard Pavel grunt and shrug from the corner of her vision. Now, turning on him, she redirected her anger. “And _you_! You _knew_ he was a liability! Why would you send him up to me as a messenger?”

“Don’t look at me,” he protested, taking a step back, “He wanted to do it and I figured you’d be better at preventing him from doing something stupid than I am. How was I supposed to know he had a weapon?”

“Why is it always me who has to keep an eye on everything that happens around here? Why do I have to prevent you all from killing yourselves or someone else like you’re all toddlers? Why can’t you just be _fucking_ trusted not to pull some stupid stunt or kill a random man in his own home or... fucking... _torture someone_ for no reason? Do you have something to prove?”

Alexander rounded on her, “This is supposed to be my operation,” he reminded her, “If you just let me do my own thing we’d be on the right track but you had to assume control.”

“Once again,” she said, her anger brimming out of control, “Daud would be ashamed. You’re dragging his name through the mud. And still you’re wondering why you can’t transverse more than a few inches? I have to take control because if I don’t… well apparently I can’t even do that. Even if I do take control then someone _still_ has to die.”

“Daud was a nutcase,” Pavel reminded her, “He had problems. We’re better off without him.”

“You’re testing me, Cass,” Alexander said in a low, dangerous voice, his eyes dark as the night sky, “Don’t talk shit about Daud like that.”

“And what if she does?” Pavel said, stepping between the other two Whalers, “You’re going to cry into your pillow tonight because _Daddy Daud never loved you as much as the rest of us?_ ”

Before Cass could pull him out of the way, Alexander had thrown a punch and landed it square in Pavel’s nose, blood spattering across the slate roof tiles and beginning to pour down his face, throwing him down onto his left shoulder, holding his nose gingerly, protecting it from further harm. Cass transversed behind and tackled Alexander as he approached Pavel again, cracking his knuckles, clearing him out the way, kneeling on his wrists and preventing him from moving any more until he fully calmed down. It would be suicide to have this fight on a roof when the Watch were now on full alert, looking for the man who had killed the rich man from Auldale in his own bathroom.

It felt like forever. Alexander thrashed underneath her grip, yelling at Pavel who was curled up on his left side in a ball, still clutching his nose, gone painfully silent. She contemplated simply knocking him out with a well-placed kick and leaving him there but decided against it, and simply waited until the angry yelling died down to nothing more than panting and heaving, having tired himself out struggling against Cass’ immovable restraint.

“I’m going to let you go if you promise to just _fuck off_ back to the house,” she said, leaning down to his ear, “and if you don’t then I’m going to throw you to the Watch.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“I’m stronger than you,” she reminded him, “I can transverse and pull and you can’t. I don’t want to have to do it, but I can. Now, are you going to go back to the house and promise not to cause any more trouble?”

He bristled in indignation, furious at the fact that she appeared to be both humiliating him and taking command of the situation, “Fine. But we’re going to have a very long fucking discussion about obedience and leadership when you come back.”

She ignored the last statement and released his wrists, freeing him up to get back on his feet, shoot both Cass and Pavel a filthy look, and walked off, dropping down at the edge of the roof to find another way back to the house that didn’t require transversing across the rooftops. Cass waited until he was well out of earshot to finally coax Pavel off the ground.

“Are you alright?” she asked, holding out a hand to help him back onto his feet, “That looked painful.”

“I’m fine,” he said back, touching his nose gingerly, “I think it’s broken.”

“I think our unit’s broken,” she said in return, taking a closer look at the wound. It was still bleeding slightly, black and blue with bruising, but it appeared to be holding well enough to start walking together, “We need to sort Alex out. He’s a complete liability.”

“What can we do?” Pavel responded, wincing, “If he thinks he’s some kind of leader then there’s not much we can do to oppose him. I don’t want to end up like that thief. I have elderly parents back at home. I don’t want them getting hurt. Unless…”

“What are you thinking?” she said, “You know I can’t be doing with murder.”

“You’re a fucking Whaler,” Pavel said back, completely amused, “Why would you join the Whalers, headed by an infamous assassin for hire, if you have a problem with murder?”

She shrugged, “Didn’t see many other opportunities, figured I could just stay out of the murder bit and stick to guarding the group. Daud never seemed to have an issue with that.”

“What if I said,” Pavel said, drawing in close, his voice low, “That your life is actively in danger by being around Alex? What if I said all our lives are endangered by Alex? Would you have a problem with it then?”

She thought for a minute. She had never considered herself a staunch utilitarian, but this was an extreme situation. She could either allow Alexander to die to potentially save the lives of others, or sit back, permit him to continue ‘leading’ the splinter faction, cause potential untold misery, but hold onto her morals.

“You don’t have to do the wet work yourself. I think most of the others consider you more of a leader than he’ll ever be. It’s up to you, unless you want some other randomer cracking and gutting him in the middle of the night?”

She wasn’t sure if she’d mind that, but didn’t entirely trust the others to take any action. “He wants Attano dead. The rest of you want Attano dead. We’re in a situation where that is entirely possible, but only Alex is deranged enough to actually try it. I say we wait until that happens and then we’ll do it. You can do the...” she paused and made a face, “work.”

“Fine,” Pavel said, nodding in agreement, “With pleasure. I intend on staying out of his way until then, though. This really fucking hurts. I don’t want a repeat event. And mark my words, it won’t be long before he ends up murdering someone else.”

Cass made a sympathetic noise and helped him across a roof, “I’ll find you something cold when we get back. Hopefully that’ll help a bit. I wish we could just give him to the Watch.”

Pavel nodded, and continued shuffling onwards. Behind them, the screaming and yelling of Watchmen continued, all the sconces in Auldale lit and shining brightly, casting bright orange light high into the dark sky. There was going to be trouble over the next few days as news of the incident spread amongst the Cityzens and returned to the infamous Thief-Taker General, head of the Watch. In one fell swoop, the lives of the Whalers had been made several times harder, more dangerous, and in a worst-case scenario, Cass knew the faction could fall apart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Fuuuck_ I _hate_ having to write Thadeus I have no idea how to get his character right.
> 
> Fun fact: the Whaler's last names are (Alex) Ramsgill, (Cass) Liu, and (Pavel) Valentine.


	17. Fallout

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Corvo steals more medical supplies. The Whalers continue to plot. Thadeus investigates the murder.

Corvo still hadn’t quite got the hang of this whole quietly-sneaking-around thing but he had returned from his outing safely, in one piece, albeit ruffled. Garrett had been in dire need of new medical supplies, namely bandages, so he had spent the previous couple of hours roaming around the Stonemarket district in search of them, circling outwards on the roofves from the clocktower until he found an apothecary named Doctor Troy’s. Looting it had been a lot harder than he expected, the doctor inexplicably still wandering around his room in the small hours of the night, the place guarded by two heavyset thugs, but once Corvo was safely in the room, alone with the unsuspecting doctor, it had been no match.

He snuck up behind him and, making sure he didn’t go too far and accidentally kill him, Corvo hooked an arm around his neck and _squeezed_ until he went limp in his arms, no more than a quiet squeak of surprise emerging from his lips. Corvo dropped him on the table in the centre of the room and went rummaging through his cabinets, resurfacing fifteen minutes later with enough medical supplies to last the next thirty years, and scarpered.

“Felt like taking a nap did we?” he heard one of the thugs say in amusement as he gathered himself again just outside the closed window, readjusting the mask on his face, the doctor obviously having been found alive. It was a good thing too: a murder would undoubtedly cause much more trouble for himself and Garrett, so he simply thanked his lucky stars and folded backwards into the air, blinking onto a nearby rooftop.

He paused for a moment while crouched on the slate tiles, watching the City as it drifted through the night, somehow breathtaking at this level despite its grubby glory down on the ground with the homeless and the drunks and the Watchmen. The moon shone bright, silver light cascading over the tops of the rooves and outlining the various blocks and slopes of larger, more intricate buildings in the distance. He would have taken a seat if it weren’t so cold. Frost glittered underneath his feet, a thin white sheet of polyhedric patterns gracing the tiled slate roof and the jutting supportive wooden beams. Breath left his mouth in great white puffs, swirling and descending around the edges of the mask, the cold freezing his muscles and making them ache as he stretched.

One thing that he had noticed was the noticeable increase in Watchmen milling around. He had not spent much time out in the City, but of the time that he had, a lot of interesting things had happened. There had been, of course, fewer Watchmen on the night of the fire, presumably they had mostly been out trying to help put the fire out, but now it seemed like there were a pair of them for every stretch of street, judging by the telltale orange glow from the torches being carried here and there.

Maybe something had happened. Something big, even for a place as full of criminals as this. He shrugged it off. If it was true that something big had happened, he hadn’t had anything to do with it, so he decided it was a good idea to keep his nose out of it for once. He buttoned his coat up in a vain attempt to keep the cold out, hoping that the brazier back in the clocktower was providing enough heat for Garrett to feel comfortable, to keep his fingers warm. After all, that did seem to help, apparently.

He smiled to himself privately inside his mask, feeling the familiar heat burning its way up his neck and curling around on the cheeks and the bridge of his nose. He was amazed that Garrett had not only not minded allowing Corvo to hold his hand, but welcomed it. It was such a juvenile thing to get excited about, but he hadn’t felt like this in… how many years had it been? Corvo had loved Jessamine - still did, a deep, profound love that he doubted would ever leave him - but that didn’t mean he didn’t also have strong feelings for the man back in the clocktower. Feeling like a teenager again was wonderful, overthinking every movement and word, blushing into the night, heart hammering with each touch and smile.

It couldn’t hurt to let his guard down for once. To allow himself to think of Garrett fondly, without fear of losing him like he had Jessamine.

He slipped as he turned around, collecting himself as he dragged himself back to the present, utterly failing to wipe the smile off his face. He had to get the bandages back to Garrett. It would be a lie to say that the fact that the Whalers were now looking for either him or Garrett didn’t scare him, that it didn’t make him brace, withdraw and fear the worst. He turned and began to jog across the rooves, back towards the clocktower, keeping his wits about him. The slate tiles were slippery and threatened to throw him off more than once, but by now he was well-versed in identifying obstacles, and compensated as he saw fit.

Garrett was dozing when Corvo got back to the clocktower, mouth slightly open, legs twitching as if he was running in whatever dream he was having, sprawled out across the bed, black hair ruffled against the pillows. Looking significantly less unwell. This was a good sign. He wasn’t under the influence of poppy; hadn’t needed it before Corvo left as miraculously, he hadn’t been in severe enough pain to warrant it. The stitches, judging by the lack of blood pooled on his shirt, had held firm.

Quiet as was possible, Corvo crept down the stairs and stashed the medical supplies in one of the cupboards near Garrett’s bed, ensuring that the various bottles and packets of needles and other assorted things didn’t rattle against each other or the shelves. He was just reaching to put the last bandages in the cupboard when he heard a low groan and a shuffle behind him. Turning around, while still knelt on the floor, Corvo found that Garrett had stirred, was now looking at him with half-lidded eyes still blurred from sleep, hair sticking out in every direction, and frown on his face, which momentarily turned into a smile before he sank back into the bed.

Corvo finished putting away the loot and sat down at the bedside, watching as Garrett’s face went through a manner of expressions before he came to fully, and then looked over at Corvo.

“I had a dream about you.”

“Oh?” Corvo said in response, drawing up the chair at the bedside again.

Garrett looked like he was struggling with something. Like he was holding down something nasty - or trying to push it back out. “It was that face - that mask of yours. Someone wearing that mask but when they took it off there was nothing underneath, and they were trying to kill me. Had a knife. You caught them. Snapped their neck. But then they grabbed you and pulled you down into the ground. You both disappeared.”

Corvo wasn’t sure what to think of that. It had obviously taken Garrett a lot of emotional energy to tell him this, but he wanted to know more. He toyed with the questions floating in his mind, carefully watching Garrett’s lined and still bruised face. “Anything happen after that?”

“No,” Garrett shook his head, “But we were here, in the clocktower. Scared me when I woke up because I was worried you-” he cut himself off abruptly and held his tongue, chewing over what he was going to say before abandoning the statement. It was true: Garrett had woken up on the defensive, momentarily believing that Corvo was there to kill him, ready to put everything (or what little he had left of it) into defending himself. But he didn’t say anything, opting instead to hope that Corvo either hadn’t heard him or would neglect to push the issue. 

“You were worried I what?” Corvo prompted, the silence now speaking more clearly than the sentence itself had, “Worried I might kill you?”

Garrett said nothing. He simply shrugged, avoiding Corvo’s gaze. That said everything that Corvo needed to know. 

“You don’t need to worry while I’m around.”

Garrett knew that, had spent a lot of time and energy trying to convince himself that it was fine to allow someone to help him, that Corvo wouldn’t have spent so much time trying to look after Garrett if he was ultimately here to harm him, but a sick combination of his natural personality and the trauma of the few days he spent underground with the torturer pushed him away and forced him back into his own mind. At any other time, it might have been different, he might have been more receptive to Corvo’s attempts to help, but right now he felt trapped in his own head, constantly on edge, simultaneously distracting himself in any way possible from thinking about the events but reliving it perpetually.

And the dreams were worse. Not being able to get any semblance of meaningful (drug-free) sleep had been catastrophic on his entire system. The injuries were on the mend but he was also run-down, mildly nauseous, constantly feeling like he was both going to fall asleep but also completely unable to. Rationally, he knew Corvo meant him no harm. But it was almost impossible to internalise that when everything else was going so disastrously wrong.

How was Garrett supposed to trust Corvo and let his guard down around him when every sudden hand movement made him jump and stifle a shout? When he had to second-guess every single action because it all brought the memories, of rough hands repeatedly inflicting harm on him, crashing back down over his head like the ice-cold water they had used to prevent him from sleeping? 

“I know,” Garrett said in response, deciding that the behemoth task of explaining himself to Corvo wasn’t feasible or realistic at the moment. Instead, he diverted, “What did you get?”

Corvo saw right through Garrett’s terse answer. He seemed useless at hiding his feelings but getting him to talk about them was like drawing blood from a stone. He was never quite sure whether he should just allow Garrett to keep things to himself, and ignore it while Garrett blatantly devolved into severe illness, or to push him for more details, risk increased mental injury, but also take the opportunity to reassure Garrett or just help him in any way. Corvo wasn’t well-versed in this kind of problem, far from it, still struggling with his own demons years after his own trauma, which made him reluctant to start probing Garrett. But it felt wrong to simply ignore the fact that Garrett was becoming increasingly mentally unwell in front of his own eyes.

Maybe there was some happy middle ground, he thought. A middle ground where Garrett didn’t feel pressured to relive what could quite possibly be the worst memories of his life, but also felt liberated to share them in confidence.

“Bandages,” Corvo said in response, “And some other medical supplies. Figured you could do with them. Raided Dr Troy’s for all he had.”

Garrett chuckled weakly upon hearing the name, “Cleared him out a few times myself. He must be getting sick of it by now.”

“He had thugs,” Corvo said, laughing along with Garrett at the idea of Dr Troy repeatedly struggling with thieves, “Two of ‘em. If they don’t notice me sneaking around then they won’t notice anybody.”

The idea of Corvo’s huge frame lumbering around inside the apothecary, unnoticed by hired thugs, got to Garrett for some reason. He wasn’t sure if it was because it was actually funny or because he was delirious from prolonged pain, but he belly-laughed into the sheets until the amused wrinkles disappeared from Corvo’s face and were replaced by an unsure expression of concern.

“Garrett, your stitches--” Corvo reminded him gently, encouraging him not to move too much in case another _incident_ happened, brushing the linen shirt offhandedly.

Garrett grunted and calmed himself, settling back down into the pillows, sighing with a small smile still lingering on his lips. It had been the first time he had laughed, genuinely laughed, in weeks now, if not months. It felt good. Didn’t make everything better but definitely calmed the pain, gave him a small buzz, better than the buzz that poppy did. And finally being able to let his guard down around Corvo was refreshing.

“Can I take another look?” Corvo asked, gesturing at Garrett’s chest, “I want to make sure they’re still fine.” He also wanted to check for infection, but didn’t tell Garrett that. He wasn’t sure what he would do if infection cropped up and the medication that Basso gave him didn’t work.

Garrett nodded at him in response, gathering himself. The last time this had happened, Corvo’s hand had blatantly lingered far too long over his chest. It hadn’t made him feel _uncomfortable_ as such, but it had been an odd experience, so he wasn’t sure how to feel about this. He wriggled as Corvo struggled to get the shirt off over his head, and once again laid back against the pillows as Corvo probed the wounds once again. 

Thankfully, they remained uninfected. Clean, pink, healthy as wounds like those could be. Corvo noticed that the stitches that hadn’t been broken earlier were healing up even better than they had been before, and those that he had attempted to stitch up himself were somehow also beginning to knit back together once again. It was not outside the realm of possibility that they might heal cleanly back together, wouldn’t leave such a noticeable scar, might not restrict his movement too much in the future.

Garrett stared up at the ceiling, the anxiety at being studied so closely slowly ebbing away, not bothering to ask questions. He could find out for himself. At least it didn’t hurt as much any more. Corvo helped him put the shirt back on and helped him sit back up.

“Don’t you dare have another coughing fit on me. I’m not stitching you up again.” Corvo smiled at his own joke as Garrett shot him a dirty look, “We’ve had quite enough of that already.”

“It’s easy enough for you to say that,” Garrett shot back, “You weren’t the one being sewn back together while fully sober.”

Corvo shrugged. He had done what he had to. “You know that’s unfair. You tied me up and knocked me out for no apparent reason not too long ago, remember? I was doing you a favour, I had no other choice--” He stopped himself and sighed seeing Garrett’s expression, drawing a hand down over his face, biting back any more scathing comments, “You want to try walking again, or is that asking for trouble?”

Garrett had been itching to get back on his feet for days now. Being sat in a bed, on his own most of the time, drugged up on poppy and drifting in and out of consciousness wasn’t his idea of a good time. It couldn’t hurt while Corvo was here to provide a bit of support could it? He nodded after a moment of silence while he mulled it over. 

“Alright.”

Corvo stood up, the bed shifting as the weight distribution changed underneath Garrett, and stood in front of the Master Thief, holding out his hands for the other to grab onto, placing his own feet in front of Garrett’s so he didn’t just slide forwards if he couldn’t find purchase on the smooth wooden boards. Remembering his injuries, Corvo changed tack, repositioning himself so it was easier to grab onto his good arm and back, so it would be easier to help him up. He gave a short, light tug on where he made contact with Garrett, ensuring that it wasn’t going to cause him pain.

“Ready?”

Garrett nodded in response.

Working as one, they heaved. Garrett struggled against the floor and leant into Corvo as he pulled upwards, helping him groaning to his feet. There was a moment of uncertainty as Garrett swayed, held on his feet by Corvo’s supportive grasp, threatening to fall forward, but the tenuous position held, miraculously.

The look that Garrett gave Corvo was quite possibly worth all the tears and heartbreak they had both gone through over the past few days. His face lit up as he finally found himself standing, supported by his own two feet, without doubling over in agony, without immediately collapsing back to the floor again. His thigh still stung like a bitch, but he had done it.

It was quite possible that now he was on the mend.

\----------------------

Predictably, Alexander was furious when Cass finally went to see him after ensuring that Pavel’s nose was cleaned and he had something to ice it with to bring down the swelling. It had taken a long time for the bleeding to finally stop for good, and a lot of poorly-hidden grunts from Pavel, but Cass was exhausted, and wanted to see Alexander as quickly as possible to get the inevitable argument out of the way as quickly as possible.

Usually, he requested that Cass knock before she came into his office to see him, but this time, she ignored that command and burst in through the door, disregarding his angry shouts, sat herself down in a chair at the side of the room and looked him dead in the eyes. “This has to stop.” Her voice was cold, and she made no effort of hiding the hate in her voice, “I’m not even going to argue with you about it, you have to stop hurting people. You have to stop attacking our brothers and sisters.”

Alexander, after having caught the full force of her disgusted look, shrugged and went back to poring over his map, “He should know better,” he said, referring to Pavel, “It’s not my fault he provoked me.”

“You’re a complete dickhead, do you know that?” said Cass, crossing her legs, “And you’re a poor leader. I don’t want you coming with us when we visit that fence again. You’re a liability.”

That seemed to provoke Alexander into acknowledging her presence. He looked up, eyes dark, surveying her carefully from across the room, “This is my fucking operation. You have no right to tell me how or how not to conduct it.”

Cass shook her head, “No but I can _kindly advise_ you on how not to lose the loyalty of all your brothers and sisters. Or get caught by the fucking _Watch_.”

“Okay,” he said, shuffling in his seat, “I can see your point. If it were up to me - it _is_ up to me, but I realise I might have been a bit brash. Ideally we would have the Watch scared of us, but I get that might not be feasible yet, not while we’re still weak. We can keep a low profile until-”

“You’re deranged,” Cass interjected, agog, “We are _never_ going to have anything on the Watch. We don’t know anything about this place. The best we can do is collect those runes, do whatever the others want with Corvo Attano, and then get back to Gristol. We’re never going to have any sort of footing in this place, especially not without Orion. The Watch will wipe us out if we cause trouble.”

Alexander considered for a minute, and then nodded in agreement. He could see where she was coming from: the Watch did indeed vastly outnumber the Whalers, and with no conceivable way of growing their own numbers (outside of blatantly recruiting members in the streets), there was no way of increasing their power. The runes would indeed bolster their powers, but that would provide no significant advantage against hundreds of Watchmen. Hell, even Attano had managed to take down a number of their brothers and sisters single-handedly. 

Alexander wanted to wait and see what would happen when they finally did get their hands on the runes before he committed to anything. But he wanted to make sure of one thing first. 

“How are we going to catch Attano? If we don’t want the Watch on us, as you said, we have to be careful about how we do things. If that fence has tipped him off, then there’s going to be trouble. How are we going to avoid that? And when we do catch him, how do we safely dispose of him?”

Cass shrugged. Pavel had indeed mentioned the possibility earlier, that the fence had tipped Attano off about their intentions of finding him. If so, then what would happen? Would it simply be best to stay out of his way? And if so, then what had they come all the way to the Eternal City for?

“I guess there’s always the chance he hasn’t told him.”

In which case, it wouldn’t hurt to go and get details. They could go in, talk to him, and then leave again, with or without information, no problem.

“He’s defenceless without Attano,” Alexander said, “If he does know him, then he’s told him, and he’ll throw Attano under the bus before he sells his disgusting thief friend out.” There was a moment of silence when Alexander rubbed the stubble on his chin gently with one hand, musing, “There is no doubt, in my mind, that Attano is not going to be there if the fence has information of any value.”

Cass rolled her eyes, despite knowing full well that Alexander had a very good point, “Do you think he’s camped there or what? See, Alex, this is why I kept telling you not to lose your shit so easily. This sort of thing happens.”

Alexander ignored the chiding and stared off into space, as if zoned out, “We can scope the place out for a bit and see if Attano’s there, or if he visits. If he is camped out there then we can think up another plan.”

There was a moment of silence while Cass mulled it over in her head. “Fine,” she finally finished, a wave of exhaustion creeping over her, giving up on trying to get Alexander to drop his plan, “We’ll do that if you want.”

She wasn’t really sure what else to say. There was clearly nothing to be gained in trying to tell him that what he was planning was pointless, fruitless. The only thing that could be done now was to go along, try to keep him in check, prevent him from committing any more murder, and then run when she had the chance. Pavel was planning something, and as soon as that happened, she could take her leave. Cass was tired of having to fight with Alexander.

“I need to check on Pavel,” Cass told Alexander as he got up, the chair scraping along the half-lit boards beneath him, “I’ll meet you outside in a moment.”

“You’re too soft on him,” Alexander said in return, scolding her gently, eyebrows raised as if he were going to say something else. “Don’t be too long.”

Cass nodded and took her leave, allowing the door to slam shut behind her, the house rattling in all its empty glory. Here, where the rats nested and curled into the timber bones of the building, and the roof sagged and dripped fetid rain from water-swollen rafters onto those unfortunate enough to be assigned to sleep there, this was what they had come to. This was where they had been camped out for days now. It was almost like the previous owners had simply upped and abandoned the place judging by the state it had been left in, or it had simply been a squat for a while now. Not clean, not safe. _Not home_.

The only thing this place had going for it was the fact that the rats, even in their swirling panic, never ate their compatriots or spread plague like in Gristol, never swarmed and overcame people, never reduced them to nothing more than bone and gristle. Instead, they were simply an annoyance: brushed past feet in the night, stole precious food, scampered from room to room in the wee hours of the morning.

Pavel was sat in a corner by himself, staring at the crooked floorboards, leisurely turning something over in his hands, as if it were a prayer. The bruises on his nose still looked fresh and raw, deep purple, blue, black. Another had blossomed underneath his right eye - swollen and reddened, the sclera saturated with burst vessels. 

“At least I can hide my terrifying face with this,” Pavel said when Cass sat down next to him, listlessly holding up the gas mask, “Wouldn’t want to scare anyone.”

“Your face is terrifying anyway,” Cass shot back lightheartedly, lips curled into a weak smile, “What have you got there?”

He held up what was settled in his left hand: another silver dagger, exactly like the one Alexander had used to kill the man back in Auldale. “Reads like poetry doesn’t it?”

He was right. The whole thing was ironic. Cass still wasn’t sure about any of this but she held back her reservations, hoping to find some other solution, “Are you sure you want to do this?”

Pavel nodded slowly. It wasn’t that he was upset over that one incident. It was just the straw that broke the camel’s back. “And do you know what’s better?”

He didn’t even wait for Cass to ask him what he meant before he withdrew another hand from his pocket and held his outstretched palm in front of him. It took Cass a moment to realise what he was holding, but when it finally dawned on her, she gasped. The small, pebbly objects seemed to hum and glow in his hand, faint crackles of electricity flickering up her hand as she moved to touch them. “What are they… runes? Pavel, where did you get these from?”

Pavel glanced up at her and dared a smirk. “I took a chance when our old barracks burnt down. I knew nobody was in the area. I knew that Alex left them there, knew there was an intruder. It was too perfect Cass. We can’t let him have them.”

“Why didn’t you tell me, Pav?”

“Cass, he’s very _good_ at getting what he wants out of people. I couldn’t put you in danger. I shouldn’t have let you in on what I’m planning, but it’s nearly over. In a few days, we won’t be in danger any more. And we can take these and do whatever we’re going to do with them, god knows they’re useless for us, but for now it just feels _right_ to keep hold of them.”

Cass knew what he meant by that. He stashed the runes back in his pocket and looked back up at her, smiled sadly.

“We need to get out of here, Cass. They all do.”

It was true. The other Whalers had been starving and succumbing to disease all throughout this, forbidden to leave. So many had died. And it was all so pointless. The power vacuum left by Daud’s death had thrown them into disarray, as power vacuums so often did. She knew she should have smelled this coming a mile off.

“I appreciate you, Pav. You’re a good friend. You scare me, but I’m glad you’re here.”

“Ditto.” He said dryly, continuing to rotate the blade in his fingers. “I think you’d better go now. I think the madman’s waiting for you.”

She agreed. It was folly to keep Alexander waiting, so she stood up, nodding once again to Pavel as he stared back at her, unsmiling. The room felt much colder now than it had when she’d entered.

Alexander was waiting outside for her, had lit up a cigarette, smoke curling up into the night air, the dim glow more visible than anything else. He had taken his coat off and it was hooked around one arm, the standard-issue belt with all its ammunition pouches looped over the other shoulder, dangling dangerously close to the lit end of the cigarette. His figure was emphasised somewhat by the shirt he wore underneath, toned and slim but not skinny, his right knee bent as he stood at ease. His hair had fallen, or been taken out of, its characteristic ponytail and fell over his shoulders in one long, kinked mass. As soon as he heard her approach behind him, he turned, clamped the cigarette between his teeth, and tied it up again messily with a band. 

She realised she had never seen him with his hair down before. Not even when they were drinking whiskey and smoking cigars and playing card games in some shitty, dingy room holed away, isolated from the rest of the world. And she doubted that Pavel had, either. 

“Ready to go?”

Cass nodded, refusing to betray the conversation that she’d just had with Pavel. It was strange: she didn’t feel _bad_ for betraying him like this, not logically anyway, but doubt coiled in her belly anyway, the uncertainty drawing her onto the defence. Nearly all the time she had spent since that episode on the rooftop in Auldale had been spent thinking over what she was planning on letting Pavel do. Was this really the correct course of action? Alexander had looked almost vulnerable stood out in the cold night air all by himself with his hair down, like some lost ghost. It certainly wasn’t doing anything to encourage or convince her that she had made the right choice.

_Made the right choice?_

That made it sound almost like it was a fixed certainty now. Like she wasn’t able to change her mind and tell Pavel not to go through with it any more. Like Alexander was a dead man walking.

He had clearly noticed the lack of reciprocated conversation now. She had been nodding and humming in response to what he had been saying, but when he asked her a question and there was no response, it became clear.

“Earth to Cass, Earth to Cass,” he said, waving a hand in front of her face, “Wake up please.”

She jumped and pushed the hand away, disgruntled. “I’m a bit tired for this right now. Can we just get it over with?”

“You’re thinking about something,” she could almost hear the smile on his lips, teasing her, “Are you gonna let me in on your little secret or keep me in the dark?”

The tone in his voice wrapped around her stomach and made her slightly queasy. She knew, for all his faults and his disgusting attitude that she was genuinely the only person he could call a friend. And from her perspective, he was about as far as one could get. So when he pulled out the flirty tones, on a good day, it would spin her head in unease; on a day like this, all she wanted to do was hide in a hole and pretend none of it existed.

“Alex, I zoned out, it’s nothing. I’m not hiding anything, but I am tired. We need to find out what’s going on with this fence or this will all be for nothing.”

He finished up the cigarette with one last puff and withdrew the butt from his mouth, flicking it off into a corner as they walked, shrugging just out of Cass’ field of view, putting his coat back on as they walked but leaving the mask tucked in the back of his waistband. “Alright, I get it. You’re a secretive person, I can respect that.” his tone was light and dismissive, but had an edge to it. An all-too familiar edge.

In reality, both of them knew that Alexander didn’t respect it and wouldn’t let it go, that he would find out one way or another. To Cass, it was just a game of attrition now; she knew she’d never tip him off willingly, but the question was whether he’d be able to force it out of her or not, by mistake or otherwise. She shuddered at the thought. All she could do was redirect when it came up and try to act as normally as possible.

Largely, they walked the rest of the way in silence, dodging out of the way of roaming Watchmen as they turned corners and climbed up onto a nearby roof as the pair approached the Crippled Burrick, observing the tavern from the elevated vantage point. They didn’t appear to be in any danger here, shrouded in shadow and the likelihood that anyone, especially the Watch, would look up onto the roof was low. That said, there were more guards out and about than usual. Shouting in the distance. From Auldale.

Cass decided not to point this out to Alexander. It could only end in tears.

Nothing much seemed to happen at the tavern over the night. Despite carefully observing the comings and goings of the building, there was no reason to believe that Corvo Attano was actually camping out there, no man fitting his profile had visited the tavern at all, which didn’t rule out the possibility that he was there, but it significantly reduced it.

“Who do you think’s living up there?” Alexander asked Cass after about an hour or so, pointing up to the nearby clocktower, arms of timber scaffolding encasing it like armour. 

Cass shrugged in return, “I dunno. What makes you think anyone’s living up there?”

He pointed at a window near the very top insistently, “There’s a light in there, like there’s a fire, or a torch or something.”

It was true. The dim orange glow emanated from the window he was pointing at. It was hard to see, but it was definitely there. Cass wasn’t sure why there would be a fire lit inside a clocktower, and it was very possible that it was inhabited, but she wasn’t going to risk another incident tonight. She simply shrugged and went back to watching the entrance of the Crippled Burrick.

“We’re looking at it from the wrong angle,” Alexander said after a while, having worked his way through several more cigarettes over the course of the last few hours with a small pile of butts to show for it, “We’ll have to see if we can get closer.”

Cass was shivering vigorously by now, so was glad to take the opportunity to move, “Sure,” she said, “But we have to go back afterwards. It’s going to get light again soon.”

True enough, the sky was lightening in the earliest hints of the morning, the moon slowly disappearing behind the horizon. If it were summer, the birds would be out singing by now. She wondered briefly if birds even lived in this City like they did in Dunwall. The whole place seemed so dead.

They made their way back down to where they had confronted the fence previously, taking care to stick to the shadows, to always have an escape route open in case a Watchman or other unsavoury character spotted them. 

Having finally found the window looking into the fence’s home, they peered through. They had been right all along. The fence was, indeed alone, sleeping on an old-looking bed in the corner of his room. 

Alexander drew away from the window and breathed a sigh of relief. “This makes things so much easier.”

Cass continued to stare through the window, looking for a potential place to spring a trap. It was cluttered, full of _stuff_ , shelves, books, a door. Plenty of places to hide. It would be easy. She continued to crane her neck, looking at the room, sorting through it in her mind, strategic actions and plans beginning to form in her mind. This was enlightening.

The screaming of a magpie caught her off-guard.

The little black-and-white figure jumped into her vision from the other side of the window, its wings spread and beak wide open in noisy warning, and she stumbled backwards, finding herself sat on the floor beside Alexander’s feet. He laughed raucously, held out a hand to help her up, and flicked what remained of his most recent cigarette away.

“Do you ever stop smoking?” she asked him incredulously as the sound of yelling and running feet emerged from the room that they had just been staring in to. “C’mon, we need to go.”

It was not hard to escape the fence, and it was unlikely that he had called the Watch on top of that, being a criminal himself. They had never been in any danger, but it was unnerving all the same, having to run all the time.

“We’ll think up a plan tomorrow,” Cass said as they returned to the Whaler house near Black Alley, “I need to get some sleep. I’ll speak to you in the morning.”

Alexander simply nodded, unsmiling. “When you feel like telling me what you’re hiding from me, then let me know. My door is always open. I am _always_ listening.”

\----------------------

The body was still warm when Thadeus finally arrived at the scene of the crime. Grey and bloodied with half-lidded eyes, sprawled out ungainly on the dark tiled floor of the bathroom, mouth open, limbs bent perpendicular at the joints. He had obviously broken his right-hand wrist on the way down, judging by the unnatural angle it had settled at, and bloodied handprints blemished the duck-egg skirting board, the sign of an attempt to fight or flee. The left hand was clenched around the throat tightly, what had been a struggle to keep the wound closed, but it had been a solid hit in the artery. He’d had no chance.

The family were hysterical when he arrived, some dishevelled and still dressed in nightclothes with puffy eyes and tears streaming down their cheeks, wailing at the loss of their family member, others solemn, jaws set, all darkened eyes and clenched muscles, but the quivering of the bottom lip always gave it away. Thadeus ignored them all. Swaggered up to the door, glanced once behind it and then looked back at the people in the corridor.

Thadeus asked the other Watchmen to keep the rest of the family out of the bathroom, and once he was alone with two other officers, who stood in the corners of the room with their batons clenched tight in their fists, he pried the left hand from the ma’s throat and inspected the wound. Only one wound: less than one inch in width, maybe two in length but easily four in depth. The wound tapered off at one end; an indication that maybe it had been a stab-then-swipe job gone wrong, maybe the victim had dropped dislodging the weapon, maybe he had fought back.

If he _had_ fought back, surely there would be more wounds on his arms, wouldn’t the attacker respond in equal force?

Unless this hadn’t been deliberate.

Thadeus paced around the body some more, stretching his knees out after the extended period spent crouched next to the corpse. The explosion of blood, as was characteristic of arterial haemorrhage, had cascaded over the room and the door, damn near traumatising the family members who had found him, gasping his last on the cold floor. The other Watchmen had carefully stepped around the pool when they had arrived, but in trying to save their family member, some of the other occupants were soaked, stood out in the hallway, dripping it everywhere.

“Dead about an hour, sir,” one of the Watchmen informed him as he was pacing, “Family seem to think he was jumped. One of the windows on the ground floor was open and mud found on the carpet. Lock was open.”

Thadeus nodded, not bothering to look up from the body. He doubted, for once, that this was anything to do with the Master Thief. If that was the case, then it wouldn’t have been such a shoddy job, complete with evidence ranging from the missing food in the pantry to the broken window lock to the bloodstained bathroom. Instead, a far nastier idea bubbled forth in his mind. “I want to speak with the rest of the family. Find us some tea, paper, a pen, and some new clothes. I don’t want any of this shit on me.” he motioned with the tip of his foot to the blood pooled on the floor.

The Watchman clicked his heels, bowed sharply and left the room, carefully avoiding the pooled blood on the floor, shutting the door gently behind him, once again blocking out the sound of anguished cries from the corridor. Thadeus sat on the edge of the bathtub and placed his chin in his hand, considering the scene. The City was not known for being crime-free, on the contrary, thievery was expected to a certain extent, facilitated at least in part by Thadeus’ own actions, but a murder in Auldale was something else. It was supposed to be the ‘safe’ part of the City. Rich, secure, well looked-after by inhabitants and guards alike (disregarding the thieves highway). What would happen if they found out that Thadeus couldn’t control violent crime in that area? They would have him out of a job before he knew it. 

And gods-forbid this had something to do with the Masked Felon. Thadeus knew he had been right to start worrying about him when he had, knew it had been a mistake to get in contact with him in the first place. There was no question about it now: he had to find and arrest him, at the very least take him in for questioning, at the very worst, just string him up and have done with it. Thadeus surveyed the body some more in all its broken glory. That was the plan as soon as he had a spare moment; to question the innkeeper he had ordered his men to bring in and find more information on the Masked Felon’s movements.

It had been a mistake to ever get him involved.

His thoughts were interrupted by an insistent knock on the door, the Watchman he had sent earlier indicating that the room was ready, the other family members given a hot drink, and ready to be talked to. He stood up in response, asked the other Watchman to guard the bathroom door from the outside, and left the room, his heels clicking on the tiled floor, through the moonlit hall, and down the stairs. 

He found it unlikely that one of the other family members had killed the man, Thadeus decided, but he decided to interview them one by one anyway on the off-chance that something was amiss. Sat in what looked like a dining room with a large polished wooden table, he summoned the first person - a quivering woman with a poof of messy ash-blonde hair and dark rings under her eyes named Lucy. Lucy was reportedly the first person who had woken at her father’s screams, and had caught a glimpse of the perpetrator.

It wasn’t long before he found out that it wasn’t a single perpetrator. Lucy had seen at least fifteen men and women escaping from her house, all wearing the same mask. He had her sketch it out from memory, and under her shaking arms there eventually appeared a rubber gas mask with hollow glass plates over the eyes, shadowed by a thin hood. It was a rough sketch, but it was recognisable. Talking to her some more, he found out that she had awoken at the scratching of the window lock downstairs but hadn’t gone to investigate because it had frightened her.

Interviewing the other family members brought forth what was roughly the same answer from each of them, with varied answers. None of the others had spotted the intruders, but had awoken at either the scream from the man murdered in the bathroom or the pounding feet and yelling from the perpetrators. 

It was light by the time Thadeus was finished interviewing the family members, the early-morning sun seeping through the windows, disfigured by the frozen winter trees, barely doing anything to warm the cold house. Thadeus had ordered the Watchmen to sort out the body still lying in the bathroom. Still tired and disgruntled at being dragged from his bed to attend to the murder, he pulled on his gloves, breathed the cold morning air-

A Watchman appeared in front of him suddenly, as if from nowhere. Thadeus took a step back, startled at the sudden appearance, and rounded on him. “Where the hell did you come from?”

The Watchman, looking uneasy, also stepped back, catching on the edge of the step and slipping, taking a moment to regain his balance while the General snarled at him from the open door. Once he was confident that he wasn’t going to simply fall over, he withdrew something small, sharp and silver from behind his back. “Sir, I found this on a roof nearby. Still bloody. Thought it might be of some interest.” 

It was a dagger. Covered in mud, but the blood was still there, clear as day, contrasting with the unblemished hilt. It looked like it would be almost new if it was cleaned.

“Who told you to go looking on the roof?” Thadeus snapped back in return, but took it off the Watchman, shooing him with a dismissive wave of the hand, bringing it back into the house and up to the bathroom, where he found the majority of the blood had been cleaned from the floor and the corpse.

Kneeling down, he compared the wound and the dagger carefully, matching up the sizes and the widths, compared the trailing gash with the tip of the weapon. They did, indeed look similar. Like the wound had been created by this very instrument. He was onto something. But why would the murderer think to escape via the rooftops?

Making his way back outside, he found that the tree that was near the window with the broken lock had dead branches scattered around its base - a clear indication that it had been climbed and damaged recently. So the intruders had entered through the window, stolen food, murdered a man in the bathroom, and then escaped through the same window, climbed up this tree, and run away over the rooftops. It was clear that the average man wouldn’t even be able to move from the branches to the roof, but it had obviously happened.

He wondered what that could mean.

Undoubtedly, whatever it was, it wasn’t a good sign. All the signs were pointing towards a organised gang of murderers of thieves. Even worse, they weren’t under his watch or protection, and had appeared of what seemed like nowhere, free to wreak havoc on the City. Although crime wasn’t at zero while Thadeus was in charge, it was an organised type of chaos, where everything had its place, everything was regulated and under his control, and he had the power to put a stop to activities he disapproved of. 

This was, without any doubt about it, not something he was happy with letting go freely.

He was walking back to the office in the pale morning light, the frost crunching underneath his feet, gentle breeze swirling around his boots dragging what remained of the autumn back down the drains and into the sewers when one of the Watchmen approached him at a jog, face crimson red, panting hard. The General continued to walk, wishing that his men could leave him alone for once, or there would be one fucking day without something cropping up. The Watchman banked, catching up with him.

“Sir,” he said with some difficulty, doubling over and taking a second to breathe as the Thief-Taker General finally stopped and tapped his foot impatiently, “Sir, we’ve just brought in the innkeeper you asked for. He’s not happy though. Think you should come quickly.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm very aware that this is beginning to meander so I'm working on making it much more concise. The good thing is, we're swiftly moving towards a conclusion (or at least I am, I've _nearly_ finished writing now). Deepest appy-polly-loggies for the lateness, it's been a bad week for coursework.
> 
> In other news, I would like to make a correction to a part of that story that I specified a few chapters ago. I said the Whaler house is in Black Alley, I'm going to change that to being **near** Black Alley. I have the situational awareness and attention span of a goldfish in real life and that translates to video games, and I have just found out that Black Alley is actually underground. In my defence, I haven't played Thief since May sooooo...


	18. A Short Siege

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It all comes to a head.

It had not entirely been a waste of Thadeus’ time, but it could have been much more productive, and now he had a dead innkeeper to dispose of to boot. This case was definitely something to do with the chapel that burnt down several nights previously, he concluded by the results of the investigation, and it had the potential to seriously destabilise his own grip on the City. 

The innkeeper had not really told him much, just about the masked man (men?) and of the fight in his bar, that the men wearing rubber gas masks had taken him outside when he started a fight with one of his other patrons and there had been nothing from him after that, until the night the chapel burnt down.

According to the barman, relayed via the innkeeper while still held in shackles under the Thief-Taker General’s watch, the man with the long hair had, for some reason, turned up again, stayed in the inn again, but didn’t appear to have any memory of what had happened before. 

There was no question about it; this was the man that Thadeus was looking for, the Masked Felon who had been asked to come from Dunwall to sort out his own little problem with the Master Thief and, in return, had only brought his own problems. Much bigger problems.

What was even more ironic was that the innkeeper had reportedly seen the Masked Felon carrying a much smaller figure out of the burning chapel, had snuck around the back of his inn while he thought the owner wasn’t looking and carried the figure off into the darkness, as if protecting him. Thadeus wasn’t sure who this was, and he was going to find out, come hell or high water. 

He hadn’t really intended on letting the innkeeper die on his watch, but he was sure there was someone else to take the business back up. It didn’t bother him in the slightest: he had killed before, no doubt about that, and he had both means of disposing of bodies and of generating rumours that would cast suspicion off himself. It wasn’t a worry, even if it had been a mistake.The worries of the little people bothered him none.

It didn’t bother him that the villagers on the outskirts of the City cowered when he walked by. The fear in their eyes and their postures as he knocked at their door and asked for answers didn’t bother him either, especially if it didn’t hinder his results any. Thadeus had begun with holding a very good reputation both in the City proper and its outskirts, but gradually he had let things… slip. He had been lazy with how he treated the Watch and the commoners and the petty criminals, but the only person he had to answer to was Baron Northcrest, not the commoners, and as long as Northcrest found no fault in the way Thadeus conducted himself, the more empowered he felt to continue to operate in this way.

The most important thing on Thadeus’ plate was to track down the Masked Felon. If he was, indeed, somehow involved with the Master Thief then all the better: two birds, one stone.

So, over the course of one afternoon, he collected more information on what had happened on the night of the chapel fire from the other villagers. Found out that not only had the Masked Felon been spending a lot of time in the area, but so had a gang of men with strange masks.

The same mask of the men who murdered the man in Auldale.

Not only that, but they had all gone in the same direction as the Masked Felon several days later. Had trouped out of the chapel and towards the City, carrying whatever they could. Thadeus threatened and blackmailed and pulled every tactic in his arsenal, but that was it, that was all that anyone would be able to tell him. He, with all the Watch officers he had brought along with him, followed the trail back into the City, asked whoever they could find.

Found nothing.

Dead end.

The Innkeeper’s son had asked questions, but Thadeus allowed the Watchmen to deal with that while he sorted out more important matters.

The next best thing, after finding more details, was propaganda and public information. It was true that this angle hadn’t worked so far when looking for the Master Thief, but in comparison to finding a man who only came out at night and seemed to be so at one with the shadows that he became a shadow himself, a band of men wearing the same distinctive mask was a much better shot, as was the man wearing the mask that looked like a skull. Put a hefty reward on it, and the chances increased significantly. On top of this, Thadeus ordered double the patrols of the Watch, much to his men’s dismay, and commanded them to bring the men in, dead or alive, injured or not.

By the end of the day, hundreds upon hundreds of Wanted posters had been created and were distributed around the City, from Auldale to the Docks. Nearly every wall bore the new posters on top of the existing ones asking for information on the whereabouts of the Master Thief and other assorted propaganda banners.

One held the mask of the Masked Felon; dark, shadowy, skullish. The face of death.

__

_Wanted on Suspicion of Conspiracy to Commit Murder_

_20,000 Gold Coins Reward_

_Do Not Approach: Considered Public Menace_

_Report to your Nearest Watch Officer_

_Trust in Our Watch_

And the second showed the masks of the men who had been spotted in Auldale.

__

_Considered Armed and Dangerous_

_Wanted in Connection with Murder_

_50,000 Gold Coins Reward_

_Trust in Our Watch_

And if this didn’t work, thought Thadeus, then he’d track the bastards down himself. These ones weren’t going to get away.

\----------------------

Days passed. The clocktower was peaceful and safe, warmed by the brazier and the torches, in contrast with the heavy gales and constant torrential freezing rain that pounded on the flagstones in the plaza and the tiles on the roof. Garrett slowly gained the strength to walk around by himself, unsupported by Corvo, and happily padded around, still finding the stairs difficult to climb at times, especially if he was tired or hungry, but with some help from Corvo, it wasn’t too much of a problem. He seemed much more content than when Corvo had first met him, more open to making sarcastic or humorous comments at little things, observing the Watchmen as they went about their patrols down below them, eventually taking to sitting down at the desk on the floor above and beginning to study his old notes and designs, the ones that he had used when first beginning to put his leathers and harness together.

Garrett himself had become significantly more comfortable with Corvo over the past few days. The man had seen almost everything, been privy to his most vulnerable moments, helped him when circumstances had seemed almost impossible for Garrett. At night, they huddled together for warmth under the thin sheets on the bed, and during the day, Corvo helped change his bandages, gripped Garrett’s hands between his own when the aching in his bones became too much, helped him pour and take poppy when he couldn’t sleep for the pain.

The night terrors, however, had only become stronger in the brief period that they spent together.

Each and every time he fell asleep, Garrett still experienced terrifying, dizzying nightmares, plagued by the memories of what had happened while he was captured by the Whalers, of the Butcher who had damaged him so mercilessly, and of other machines of his own mind’s design that melded and meshed to create frightening sequences. 

Even more worryingly to Corvo, he had heard Garrett screaming his name, begging him not to hurt him, to leave him alone. When that happened the first time, Corvo, jumping at the mention of his own name, paced around near the window, gripping the sill when he could convince himself to stand still, watching his knuckles turn white, begging Garrett silently to stop. By the time he had calmed himself down and went to make sure Garrett was alright, the episode had passed, the expression on his face had returned to one of peace, but the thumping in Corvo’s head and the nausea in his gut took much longer to recede. 

The following episodes hadn’t been much easier. But thankfully, at least for Corvo, most of Garrett’s nightmares didn’t seem to revolve around him, although it always still put him on edge.

Over time, Garrett had eventually fallen into a pattern of sleeping during the night instead of the day, most likely influenced by Corvo’s own preferred sleeping pattern, although he was very clearly unhappy at having fallen into this routine. After all, it was all he had ever really known. But what was the point in sleeping during the day when there was no possibility of leaving the clocktower at night? His arm was still severely damaged, fingers still completely raw and unusable, leathers and gear still needed to be remade. There wasn’t even any need to leave the tower. But Garrett still grumbled away as he hobbled to and fro over the smooth wooden floors, apparently not noticing that Corvo saw right through him. He could put on a grumpy front all he wanted, but it was impossible to fully hide the limited pleasure he finally found in becoming more mobile.

At least, at nights, it was easier for Corvo to pull him in tighter as he thrashed and screamed and cried into his pillow, whispered calming words into his ear, reminded him that he wasn’t alone, that Corvo had him safe, and played with his black tufty hair and let him lay on his chest as the remnants of the night terrors wore off. Let him fall asleep to the slow rise and fall of his own chest, as sure as the rising of the sun in the mornings.

Similarly, like how Garrett pretended that he didn’t feel joy at moving around of his own free will, it was very clear that he pretended not to feel reassured at Corvo’s presence. He didn’t fight the strong arms as they enveloped him when he woke up again, not always sure of why his heart was racing and his mouth was dry, but melted into them, grounded himself in the sure thudding of the heart at his back and the feeling of the cool, dry arms against his own sweat-slick chest. 

He would allow himself to feel reassured by Corvo’s low mumblings as he drifted back off again, allow himself to feel protected by the broad expanse of his chest at his back. And when the mornings came, there was never any discussion of the events of the night before. Garrett would simply pretend none of it happened, and Corvo would smile to himself in the knowledge that it always made Garrett feel better, more secure in his own home. Maybe, had even come to rely on Corvo.

Garrett had scoffed and rolled his eyes when Corvo had suggested that he talk to him about what had happened in the captivity of the Whalers, brushed it off and continued to do his thing, but to Garrett, the very thought of sharing was unbearable. He couldn’t even think about it. It was an impossibility.

He couldn’t.

He _wouldn’t_.

But at least, in among all this shit and terror and anxiety, he was beginning to heal. After all, wasn’t that the most important bit? All that mattered to him was that his body was healed enough to climb, run, creep and steal again. His mind wasn’t holding him back from that. He had allowed that sentiment slip only once, when he was coming out of a drugged haze, still exhausted out of his mind, still _hurting_. Corvo had disagreed, thoroughly. Emotional… things weren’t always at the forefront of Garrett’s mind. It was easy to contain and repress them when he lived up here all by himself and he wasn’t being scrutinised by anyone else, and whenever he met with Basso, he generally felt much better than when he was holed up alone for days at a time, so he never brought it up.

Corvo _had_ always seemed to be very _big_ on the whole sharing feelings thing, at least around Garrett. On the outside, he could see that Corvo might be a bit gruff, a man who kept things to himself, especially to those people he might not be particularly close with. But Garrett wasn’t about to tear down years worth of walls for his benefit.

So Corvo dropped it.

One thing that didn’t sit right with Garrett, however much he tried to ignore it, was that he had never really been able to get a straight answer out of Corvo regarding where he had come from, who he really was, what he was doing in the City. He had given answers, of course, but something about them never really convinced him, the stories always seemed a bit too mundane or missed details here and there; characters lacked names and faces and personalities, jobs lacked notable events, aside from those that appeared to further the act.

And that was, quite possibly, the one thing preventing Garrett from becoming even closer to Corvo. 

It was a shame, really, because Corvo was one of the few people Garrett felt that he might one day be able to trust Corvo. Had even slowly developed feelings for him, although he understood that the two weren’t necessarily mutually exclusive. Was it really _slow_ if it had happened over the course of only a week?

How could he develop feelings for Corvo after everything Garrett had been through? After he had _pinned him down_ to sew him back up before the poppy really took effect? Garrett valued function over form by a country mile but how could he feel attracted to him after having been exposed to him in almost every conceivable way?

Yet here he was.

 _Feeling._

But the idea of letting Corvo on left a bitter taste in his mouth and an unfamiliar, not entirely pleasant flutter deep in his guts.

Corvo had also discussed his plan to help Basso with Garrett, but only to an extent. For all Garrett knew, he was going to jump in and ambush the Whalers, guns blazing, ready to murder whoever even vaguely looked like a threat. He knew that Corvo had planned a surprise, or a trap, or something of the like, but how this was going to play out was unclear. For all they knew, Corvo was going to be ambushed himself.

One day, Garrett woke from a nap to find Corvo sat at the desk on the floor above, all his weapons stacked up neatly on the table, a couple of crossbow bolts lined up, the foldable blade sheathed and placed perpendicular to the swirling grain of the light wood, the mask sat in the centre of it all, blue-black and gold, shining dully in the light of the brazier. 

Garrett just watched him while leaning heavily against the windowsill. Observed as Corvo sorted out his weapons, moved them around as if deciding what to take and what not to, pausing to scratch at his chin, toying with the week-old stubble that had appeared in the absence of a good shaving razor. It was a while before he finally looked over to Garrett, quietly staring at him, still not smiling.

“Those bastards are supposed to be visiting Basso tonight. I’ll go along and see what I can do, find out where they’re staying. It should be useful, can finally get a plan together.”

It was clear to Garrett that Corvo was only partially talking to inform him of what was going to happen. He was rambling more for himself. Probably a nervous habit, one that Garrett had noticed, that almost grated on his nerves. Almost. He did the same thing occasionally, commenting on items or events that interested him without any particular intended recipient, and Corvo’s apparent adoption of the same habit reminded him too much of his own mistakes. No good.

“Do you think Basso’s okay?” Garrett continued, looking out of the clocktower window and down into the plaza below, the uncharacteristic golden evening light cascading over the benches, the sky swirling with heavy rain clouds. Obviously there was a storm coming. The warmth of the afternoon had been an outlier against the freezing, wet weather of the past few days. It had been a welcome relief, but now the rain was coming back with force.

“I’m sure he’s fine,” Corvo said, barely looking up from the assortment of weapons he had laid out in front of him. “He’ll have to be.”

Corvo had already said that he was planning on leaving just after nightfall, had planned on catching the Whalers while they were at the Crippled Burrick. As the sky darkened and melded into the cold blackness of winter night, the rain began to fall once again, driving down in torrents. Corvo, seeming to have been lost in his thoughts for the past few hours, finally stood up, shrugged on his coat, pulled up his hood. He took one last look at Garrett before taking the mask in his hands and attached it to his face, a mechanical whirr barely audible as the lenses rotated in and out of focus, clearly focusing and sliding in and out of tune with Corvo’s own eyes.

Garrett had spent a lot of time studying the mask, back in the first couple of nights, but he hadn’t really put much thought into what it actually looked like on Corvo. It had concerned him in the first instance that the mask was clearly designed for nothing other than inspiring fear in those who viewed it, but on Corvo it was something else.

Nothing else seemed to remain of the kindly man who had made bad jokes, looked after him, ensured he was comfortable and safe. None of the softness lingered after he put on the mask, not the gentle wrinkles, not the smile, nothing. 

Instead, this was a different man. A cold aura seemed to surround him, making the hairs on the back of Garrett’s neck prickle in something that felt like fear. Tall, broad, faceless. 

Maybe he shouldn’t have trusted this man so readily, allowed him to get so close. Maybe it was a mistake not to make a better point of finding out about his background and backing it up with hard evidence. Scratch that. It had been a _huge_ mistake. He had known it all along, but what other choice did he have? He could have worried himself sick over it, trapped in his bed, unable to do anything or even feed himself for fear of Corvo’s presence, or just gone with it. 

Corvo had been so slick about avoiding his questions.

Maybe this wasn’t Corvo any more, maybe it was someone else.

He backed away slightly as Corvo turned to face him again, the whirring of the gears in the sockets of the eyes painfully loud now in the relative silence the clocktower had descended into. He cocked his head as the mask focused, and then, without any further ado, hopped up onto the window sill and jumped down without any sort of regard for the height of the building. There were no farewells.

Garrett gathered himself for a moment before following in Corvo’s footsteps, leaning out of the window as far as his injuries would let him, and followed Corvo’s movements intently, watching him hop across the roofs, vaulting over balconies and posts before dropping down onto the ground and dipping out of sight. He didn’t seem to have been harmed in any way by the fall from the clocktower; quite possibly something to do with his ability to… ‘blink’? He shook his head. It was easier just to pretend that conversation hadn’t happened.

It was a while before he felt able to sit back down again, the pain in his extremities exploding back into full force and forcing him to double over as he made his way back to the desk and stubbornly pulled out the old designs for the leathers and harness, trying to ignore the agony in his arm and fingers.

All of this had been a mistake.

\----------------------

Pavel, as a surprise to Cass, had opted to join the rest of them when the time came to visit the Crippled Burrick again. She had spent a lot of time and energy cautioning him against it, telling him to think carefully about how he’d temper himself around Alexander, how to avoid winding him up. Pavel had insisted anyway. Had done very well at convincing her that nothing was amiss. She was satisfied that he wasn’t planning anything. Even if he was, what would he be able to do with several of the best Whalers there, all committed to capturing Attano, all spoiling for a good fight? They’d be on him like ants. Pavel hated Alexander, true, but he wasn’t suicidal.

Even before the incident in Auldale, Pavel, like Cass, had a healthy distrust of Alexander. He had not been as bothered by the thief’s torture as some of the other men but it had put him on edge, Cass could tell. They hadn’t discussed it explicitly, but the sentiment was definitely there. Alexander had never been kind to Pavel either, and he was a poor strategist, to the point of lunacy. That, more than anything, annoyed Pavel.

He had questioned her many times, in the moments that they had private together, how he had managed to assume de-facto leadership. Cass wasn’t sure. She wasn’t well-versed in philosophy of the mind, but his suggestion that the power vacuum caused by Orion’s departure had aggravated the problem made a lot of sense, and the combination of the constant threats by Alexander, the confusion of the chapel fire, and the scramble for survival didn’t make things any better at all. After all, who else had been a better candidate?

Pavel had suggested that it was her.

Cass brushed this suggestion off in annoyance. Even if she felt capable of leading several tens of disgruntled Whalers, she didn’t want to do it anyway. It wasn’t for her.

Alexander would never allow it anyway, nothing would convince him of the fact, short of murder, and until now, things hadn’t reached a head. Cass didn’t really feel like losing her life over a petty power struggle, not right now anyway, the time wasn’t right. And, hopefully, when she did finally give Pavel the go-ahead, she could escape unscathed and go back to Gristol.

Alexander still knew that something was up, and repeatedly called her into his office to quiz her, never once overtly threatening, but the very fact that he was curious spelled trouble. If she spilled, either through accident or force, she would die, and so would Pavel.

Death on every side. There was no way to win.

Alexander was trying to apologise to Pavel on their way to the Crippled Burrick, although it clearly wasn’t, in any way, sincere, or particularly gracefully executed. Both he and Cass had been attempting to stay at the back of the group, out of Alexander’s earshot, but he insisted on having them walk with him. In the furthest confines of her mind, Cass wondered if this was because he suspected something. He wasn’t stupid, after all, but he seemed breezy enough that she’d almost thought he’d forgotten.

His apology was embarrassing. She shrivelled up inside, feeling Pavel burn silently beside her. He passed over specifics as if they didn’t even matter. Fumbled his way through a half-arsed ‘sorry’ and ‘it won’t happen again’.

“You’re forgiven,” Pavel said after far too long, relieving the tension between them, “Please, don’t mention it. It’s fine.”

Cass knew it wasn’t fine, that he was tired of being insulted in this way and wanted to go back to doing anything but talking with Alexander. His nose was still broken and the bruises had only just begun to fade to a murky blue-yellow hue. It would take a hell of a lot more than an insincere apology to make up for that.

“Look,” said Cass, trying to intercept, “If we don’t keep our voices down, someone from the Watch is going to spot us, Alex. Can we talk about this later?”

Alexander rolled his eyes at her, mouthed _fine_ and went back to leading the group with one of the other Whalers. Cass and Pavel sunk to the back of the group.

“I hope you realise he’s still listening to us,” Cass said, creeping over the tiles, praying to the Outsider that none of them were loose, “You may think he’s out of earshot, but he’s listening.”

Pavel snorted, “You’re losing it. There’s no way--”

“There is, Pav, you have to be careful. If he hears and we get back tonight he’ll murder you in your sleep, regardless of how much he’s enjoying playing with Attano. He doesn’t care about you.”

“I know,” Pavel said, his voice barely louder than a whisper, “I don’t get what his fucking problem is. He never used to be like this.”

Cass shrugged, keeping her eyes set carefully on the tilt of Alexander’s head, conscious of the fact that even a slight angle could indicate that he was listening, “Pavel, I’m getting paranoid that he’s going to kill me in the middle of the night. I can’t sleep any more. I can’t eat because I’m worried he’s going to poison my food. He’s in his office, planning, _all the fucking time_ , he doesn’t sleep. I think he knows. Do you think he’s possessed or something?”

He turned to her, eyes wide, “Cass, he’s a bastard but he’s not going to murder you for no reason. He likes you, you’re probably his only friend. I think all this shit is just getting to you. You need to relax.”

She shook her head, internalising what he had just told her. Maybe she was overreacting. But she knew she had a valid point; if he did find out about their plot, he’d kill them both without a second thought. She looked over at Pavel again as the front of the group vaulted over a wooden railing and found him twirling something shiny and silver in his hands.

“ _Pavel, what the fuck?!_ What’s your problem? I can’t deal with this again, you’re going to get us both killed!”

He side-eyed her and tucked the dagger back into one of the ammo pouches fastened to his belt, eyes narrow, “Cass, it has to be done.”

“Not tonight it fucking doesn’t you stupid _fuck. Void._ Throw it away now.”

“No.”

She was sure she could hear a tinkling laugh in the air around them.

“Throw it the fuck away or I’ll--”

“Or you’ll what? Tell Alex?”

Her heart clenched in terror as she saw Alexander stop suddenly, pivot still crouched, and make his way back towards the pair. He had put his mask on at some point since he had been making his sad excuse of an apology to Pavel, only his hair distinguishing him from the rest of the Whalers. He gently pushed some of them forward as he made his way back, and Cass briefly contemplated dropping everything and running right there and then.

There was no way he could have heard them. She’d been checking, religiously.

“We’re nearly there,” he said as he approached, and Cass nearly collapsed in relief, “Masks on. I don’t want any of those Watch bastards seeing our faces again.”

_Again?_

She nodded and pulled her own gas mask down over her face, Pavel doing the same, just within her peripheral vision. _It’s fine, you’re fine,_ she repeated to herself, trying to calm down, _he hasn’t heard you, you’ll be alright._

“If you have anything to tell me, do it now. We won’t be getting chance to talk in quite a while.”

Cass stumbled over her own words, “What?”

Pavel shook his head, “Nothing to report. Give us the signal and we’ll do what you say, sir.”

_’Sir’. Nice touch._

Alexander nodded, paused for a minute, and returned to the front of the group, taking his time, pushing his way past the other Whalers, reaching the edge of the building and taking a quick glance over. The clocktower stood proud in the plaza, Watchmen out strong, pacing here and there on the lookout for trouble.

Cass noticed a poster on one of the walls. Two posters, two masks. One showing the mask of Corvo Attano, clearly now wanted by the Watch, for reasons unknown to her. She puzzled over the skull-like face, wondering what he’d done to end up in the City, wondering how he’d already managed to piss the Watch off enough to end up on a Wanted poster. On the other poster was the Whaler mask, sketched fairly accurately considering they’d never actually left the house in Auldale in anything other than the dead of night. Whoever had spotted them clearly had an excellent memory and very good perception.

She wasn’t entirely surprised, though. They had it coming, especially after they had failed to rein Alexander in. She refused to blame herself individually, but as a group, they had failed themselves, collectively.

“What are you doing?” Pavel said, catching her by the arm, trying to pull her away from the posters where she had come to a halt, “We have to go. Look, they’re about to--”

“Pavel, we’re wanted,” she said, interrupting him, pointing at the poster, expecting a greater reaction than the one she got. He simply shrugged at her and kept tugging on her coat.

“I know. I’m not surprised, but there will be even more trouble if we don’t sort Alex out right now. You don’t want me running him through tonight, then come with me and help keep him under control. We don’t want another _thief_ situation with the fence.”

No. She didn’t.

Soon as anything, she was with the other Whalers at the door to the fence’s home. They had snaked around the back of the tavern without much worry, ensuring they didn’t spend any more time than necessary on the ground where so many other criminals had been spotted and apprehended by the Watch.

Alexander was already stood behind the door, hand on his sword, finger over the place where his lips would be if he wasn’t wearing the mask. Cass watched him intently, right arm slightly outstretched so that if Pavel _did_ decide to attack Alexander now, she might have some chance at stopping him before he ran him through and got them both killed.

So much could go wrong right now. The fence could look outside and scream for help. The Watch could come marching around the corner. _Anyone_ could have spotted them.

It was too risky. They had to turn back.

She grabbed Pavel by the arm of his coat and he barely had chance to look at her before Alex knocked on the door and they shuffled off to the side so that, when the fence did open the door, they wouldn’t be immediately noticeable. They would blend in with the shadows of the evening.

There was a moment of silence. Alexander pulled off his mask and shook the damp hair from his face.

A few muffled footsteps padding to the door.

She couldn’t believe this was happening _again_. Her heart was in her mouth.

The rattle of a key in the lock and a _clunk_ as the mechanisms withdrew.

The fence looked around the corner of the door nervously, on edge, as if he were about to drop everything and run in that one moment. He relaxed noticeably when it appeared to him that only Alexander was in sight, shoulders sagging. 

“Have you changed your mind?” Alexander said, and the fence narrowed his eyes in suspicion, looking around, still appearing not to have spotted the rest of the Whalers.

“I--”

All the other Whalers needed was the slightest indication that Alexander was on the offence. He pushed the fence in the chest with a firm blow with the heel of his hand and he stumbled, which gave them the opening that they needed to close in.

One of the Whalers blinked around behind the gasping fence and hooked an arm around his neck, applying enough pressure to remain a credible threat, a blade pressed to the small of his back. They stepped backwards, pulling him backwards through the door while he flailed for a moment in terror, but froze and simply complied as they walked him back through the threshold, the last Whaler to enter the room shutting the door behind them.

The magpie predictably began to scream, raising the hairs on the back of Cass’ neck and provoking visible irritation from the others. Alexander pulled a sheet off the bed and threw it unceremoniously over the bird, just enough weight to ensure she couldn’t move and the insistent caw-ing would be muffled. He looked over his shoulder and grinned dangerously at the others.

Cass had a blade drawn like the rest of them, but had no intention of actually using it on anyone except Alexander. Even that was iffy. As soon as he got that dangerous look in his eyes again, she knew she’d have no issues with running him straight through. Fury began to burn in her gut. She had never expected that it would feel like this. She stared at Pavel across the room and he avoided her masked gaze, standing by the fence, one of his own blades pressed to his side while the others bound his hands.

Alexander marched around the room, covering which windows he could find, lighting all the gas lamps and candles he could find in the hope that it would indicate to any outsiders that nothing was wrong. He worked quickly and calmly, and maybe Cass was misinterpreting, but he was excited as well. There was a look in his eyes. Like he wasn’t really there.

But he _was_ there. He had ordered it. He was carrying it out. The fence was sat in a chair, hands and feet bound, immobile, gagged so now he couldn’t even yell for help. The other Whalers were looking at each other nervously; threatening the fence like this hadn’t been what they expected when Alexander told them that they were going to capture Corvo Attano.

Alexander, from the other side of the room, picked up a stray paper from the desk and held it up towards the light. “ _Basso_. It’s Basso, right?”

The fence just struggled angrily, wriggled, put up what limited resistance he could. 

Alexander shrugged and continued strolling around the room nonchalantly, taking his time, stroking the books in the bookcases and poring over the notes on Basso’s desk. It was several minutes before he finally collected himself, still grinning, and returned to stand in front of Basso, hands on his hips, mask still off.

“Have you changed your mind about giving us details on Corvo Attano’s whereabouts?”

There was a fearful grunt, but no indication of either affirmative or negative leanings. His feet failed to gain purchase on the ground as he scrambled.

Alexander’s voice turned sinister. “Did you ask him to come here and help you?”

There was a glint of fear and recognition in Basso’s eyes. Alexander took this as a yes, just as Pavel had predicted. Cass was ready to spring into action at any moment, but Alexander looked delighted. He leant down and patted the fence on the cheek.

“You’ve done us a great favour. Finally, we can meet our old friend. After so long.”

Cass watched as Pavel hooked an arm around Basso’s own, weaving in between the humerus and his back, _twisting_ so it would very quickly become painful if Basso struggled too much or for too long. For now, it looked like Alexander was going to keep his ill intentions in check. Maybe he had finally twigged that it was bad for everyone to take the violent route immediately and without question.

There was a moment where Alexander continued smiling in the face of the fence, who scowled back, and then he stood up and began pacing back and forth, back and forth. He was done with this for now. All he had to do was wait.

It wasn’t that long, maybe quarter of an hour, but to Cass it felt like an eternity. She shuffled only occasionally, refusing to risk blowing the whole thing up in her face, biding her time, waiting for the right moment, before there were loud footsteps on the stairs outside. There was a flicker of relief in Basso’s eyes. The rest of the Whalers tensed collectively.

Then there was a knock on the door. Three measured strikes against the wood.

Cass felt her stomach churn dangerously. She swallowed, willing it to shut up.

“Looks like we have a visitor!” Alexander announced, as if nobody else had noticed, not really seeming to care if the person outside heard. He strode to the door, with a bounce in his step, looked around gleefully, and then opened it with a creak.

This was it. 

This was what they had all been waiting for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ARE YOU READY?


	19. Diplomacy or Combat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A lot of people slug it out.

Corvo wasn’t really sure what he had expected. Basso had never told him exactly when the Whalers were coming back to talk to him, Corvo wasn’t even certain they had told Basso that, but he had hoped that arriving early would protect him from a situation like this. Nonetheless, it was inevitably going to happen one way or another. It just happened sooner than expected.

It wasn’t any less of a smack in the teeth though. A literal one. He reeled from the fist as soon as it struck him across the jaw and doubled over, eyes screwed shut, hands clenched over his lower face. Another blow caught him in the stomach, hard, forcing the wind from his lungs. 

He wasn’t sure what had happened since he had last done any actual wet work, but this certainly wasn’t how he would have reacted when he was working for the Loyalists. He would have anticipated this, been two steps ahead. There _had_ been the incident with the poison but anyone would have fallen for that. He knew that the Whalers would be here later, but for some reason, the idea that they might be waiting _for_ him hadn’t actually crossed his mind, and now he was paying for it. He managed to catch a quick glimpse of Basso who was on his knees, restrained by two Whalers before the man who had punched him grabbed a fistful of hair and dragged him across the boundary, and another slammed the door shut after them and bolted it closed.

He pulled backwards, still dizzy and disorientated from the initial blows. He was trapped now. No way out except diplomacy or combat, and even if he did want to try talking his way out of this mess, the chance that Daud’s ex-lackeys would be willing to do anything other than beat him to death was too low to be comfortable.

There were at least fifteen Whalers in the room, quite possibly many more, all of them masked save for the one who was currently on the attack. His mouth was contorted in fury, hair tangled and frizzy, face bright red. If it was a matter of Corvo against this man, there was no doubt who would win, but Corvo could see the other Whalers advancing. He could see how it would play out.

Corvo was released suddenly from the grip, his scalp stinging, little pin pricks erupting along his scalp, and the unmasked Whaler lunged at him again before Corvo had time to react, grabbing him by the throat, digging his fingers and nails in, slamming and then pinning him to the wall, swinging at him time and time again.

The first blow shocked Corvo, his muscles freezing up involuntarily, leaving an obvious opening.

The second blow brought stars to his vision, and only now did he raise a hand to try to deflect the third.

Miss.

It fell off to the left side of his nose. It didn’t hurt any less for it, but if that had landed any further right then it would have broken it, which is what the fourth one did. Blood spattered down the front of his face and dripped onto the floor. 

Corvo lunged forward with his whole bodyweight and headbutted his attacker, who tripped back over his own feet with a startled expression and fell to the floor, landing with a soft “oomph” and a low thud. Before Corvo could move again, there were five more Whalers in place of the unmasked one, who collectively wrestled him to the floor and pinned him down while the ringleader struggled to his feet and blinked slowly, holding his head for a moment before looking back over to Basso, and then squatted down in front of Corvo. Corvo yelled and pushed and writhed, feeling the grips of the Whalers above him loosen and then tighten tenfold. He would have cursed himself for being so careless if he wasn’t so terrified. His chest heaved and heart raced, the back of his throat suddenly bone dry.

“You know, Corvo, it’s a real shame our Butcher friend’s not here. We really could have had so much more fun than we will do, but someone had to dispatch him, didn’t they?”

Corvo scowled up at him, taking only half a second to calm himself enough to spit out the blood that had dripped into his mouth while the other Whalers had attacked him, aiming at the ringleader’s boots.

He continued to talk while Corvo was restrained. “Everyone in this room wants you dead. I want you dead. Basso here _probably_ wants you dead too, don’t you Basso?”

He looked over at Basso, who had stopped trying to fight the men who were holding him back, and was just looking over at Corvo with a blank expression. What would Basso be able to do anyway, even if he didn’t currently have a knife pressed into his back and a threatening hand at his throat?

“...But maybe we can treat you to a taste of what we gave your friend, right? We don’t need a specialised service, we’re Whalers. We can make do. It’s what we’ve been doing in this shithole of a city for so long now, and we can keep going for just a little bit longer.” he grabbed Corvo by the hair, _yanked_ upwards to an intense cry of pain and caressed the week-old stubble. He was smiling, viciously, wolf-like. There was a predatory glint in his eyes that made Corvo shiver. None of the other Whalers seemed to be moving, stuck to their positions.

“Take his weapons off him. Look for any of that Piero or Sokolov shit he’s got on him too, we need it.” He grabbed a chair from the desk at the other side of the room and a length of frayed rope, gently twirling it between his fingers, “Please restrain him. And silence him too, we don’t need anyone asking questions.”

Corvo groaned as the Whalers lifted him off the floor, and then abruptly dropped to his knees, displacing his bodyweight, in an attempt to get them to let go, shaking first one way and then another, kicking backwards into the knee of the Whaler directly behind him. He managed to dislodge one, but was no less trapped for it. A rough fist struck him directly across the head and he watched as the room span far out of his control. Dropping back to the floor, he felt the hands of one of the men roaming under his coat, looking for his weapons, unclipping the foldable blade from his belt, and removing the pistol and crossbow from his back and side respectively. They rummaged through his pockets and found nothing, none of Piero’s elixir, no Sokolov potions. He was powerless. Felt like a rabbit in a snare.

“Come here unprepared?” the Whaler teased, smirking as he watched his colleagues haul Corvo across the room and deposit him in the chair, his head lolling back while his arms were pinned to the arm rests. He swatted at the hands but that did nothing, and heard a rough laugh from the man stood in front of him. “Perhaps we should get the niceties out the way. I’m Alexander. I’ll be your host this evening.”

It took a few minutes for the room to stop spinning, and by that time it was too late. A mild headache throbbed across his head from where the blow landed, pulsing in the corners of his vision. He squinted up, looking Alexander in the eye, refusing to show fear, jaw set. He heard Basso struggling in the corner of the room, but the sounds of resistance stopped abruptly.

“It’s a shame we don’t have any specialised… instruments in here, Corvo, but we can make do,” Alexander said, before walking back over to - and leaning over - him, holding his left hand between his own, thumbing the Outsider’s mark, with a look of deep concentration on his face. “I don’t believe anyone told me you were gifted like Daud was. That would explain a lot. No normal assassin would have been able to take him down. It takes something special, I should have known. I wonder if you can still use your gifts if you lose that hand.”

Corvo tried to turn his hand over just to stop Alexander from playing with the mark but he held it firm and still. The mark crackled faintly along the surface of his skin, tingling and interacting with what remained of Alexander’s own energy. Corvo could feel _something_ from Alexander. Corvo could recognise Void energy when he came across it, but this was different. It felt wrong, sickly, dark. His own magic wasn’t _morally_ correct or incorrect, but what little remained of the energy was almost… corrupted? He didn’t know how that was possible, but if there was one word to describe how it felt and interacted, it was that. Briefly he wondered how it came to be; if the Outsider had taken the same interest in this Whaler as he had himself, if he had an issue with Alexander’s questionable morals.

_”Gifted like Daud”_... the way he talked, Corvo doubted that he did have his own mark. But in that case…

How had it come to be?

“Daud graciously shared his own powers with me,” Alexander said, as if reading Corvo’s mind, “And now I’m wondering if you can too.” 

Corvo frowned at Alexander. He wouldn’t, even if he could. He wasn’t going to share his abilities with someone who tortured and murdered others, although he wasn’t even sure how anyway.  
“But what I’m wondering more is this: where are the rune fragments you stole from me? Where did you put them?”

That, Corvo wasn’t sure of. He didn’t remember actually doing anything with the fragments when he came across them: he had not absorbed them, he had not taken them with him. He had been preoccupied. The only sensible solution was that he had left them back underneath the chapel. He smiled and laughed inwardly. This man had been searching so desperately for these small fragments, only to lose them in a common fire.

So Corvo did nothing but shake his head. Everyone in this room was so royally _fucked_. He eyed the weapons that had been stacked on Basso’s desk, and then his gaze flicked back to Basso, who was still staring at him helplessly. Alexander was pacing the room, increasingly restless. “So what you’re saying is… you don’t know. Is that it?”

Corvo worked his mouth around the fabric that had been stuffed in it, attempting to dispel the ache that had settled in his jaw. There was no need to try to say anything. He didn’t know what had happened to them, so he had nothing to say, despite the fear balling in his chest.

He saw one of the Whalers turn and glance at one of the men holding Basso behind Alexander's back. That was odd. 

Alexander’s pacing quickened. His eyes roamed here and there, his hands searching restlessly through his pockets and then running through his hair and then back down to his chin. “So this is all pointless. Fine. I’m just going to have to kill you then. If you change your mind - I mean if you remember what happened to the fragments, then tell me,” he turned around and began pacing again, “I mean you may as well. If you do then I might not track down and kill your thief friend after you die. He’s going to have a worse time than you are, except this time you won’t be there to rescue him.”

While Alexander had his back turned, Corvo began to think. He twisted his hands against the restraints gently, slowly working his hands back out, making them as small as possible, squishing his fingers together, tucking his thumb towards the palm of his hand, pulling on the rope where he could. Although there was some give, it wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough. He needed something better.

“Can you imagine him, all by himself, calling for help after we’re done with him while his house burns down around him?”

He ignored the mental image that Alexander had just forced into his head. He had to escape. There was no other way to get out than to use his Void magic, unless the Outsider decided to spontaneously appear and cause trouble. It had barely recovered over the past few days, had not restored itself back to what it once was, and he had been feeling all the worse for it. Although it wasn’t an exact metric, he was able to guess, at a rough estimate, how much juice he had left. And even though it wasn’t a lot, it was enough. Enough to get himself out of this situation, if he was careful about it. There were three possibilities:

1\. He decided to possess one of the other Whalers. It was guaranteed to cause serious confusion for a few seconds, and Corvo knew he would be able to take advantage of that and have a better chance at overpowering Alexander. The problem with this was that there were still too many Whalers to incapacitate at once. To possess a Whaler was massively taxing, and he didn’t have enough magic for anything following that. 

2\. He could summon a swarm of rats. Although this was a good plan regarding getting rid of the Whalers, it would mean the end for Basso if he wasn’t able to get off the floor in time, and there was no guarantee his captors wouldn’t simply turn around and execute him on the spot.

3\. He could simply wait and hope a better opportunity came along.

“I don’t believe my good friend finished the work he was doing with your friend’s fingernails. There’s clearly room for improvement there, right?”

Time was running out, fast. Alexander was continuing to pace the room, but was searching though Basso’s things now, frantically rummaging through drawers and cupboards, looking for tools. He walked across to the other side of the room, having apparently spotted something, and picked it up. It glinted sharply in the dull light of the room, the light fracturing all over the floor. He raised it, and then brought it down on the side of the table with a _smash_ and a light tinkling as shards of glass spread out across the floor, bouncing over each other in a frantic kind of dance.

“I just don’t give a shit anymore, Corvo,” Alexander said, turning back towards him and raising the broken bottle so it was clearly visible by Corvo, “I thought this was going to be fun, I did, but really I just want you dead. If you aren’t going to tell me where the fragments are - which you clearly aren’t - then we may as well just get started.”

Alexander advanced across the room as Corvo racked his brains. There had to be some way out. There had to be. The broken bottle diffracted the candlelight and spread it far across the mucky floor. Some of the other Whalers were shuffling uncomfortably. If he didn’t get out now, then surely this was a tipping point for them? Or was it?

Alexander got in close to Corvo’s ear, as close as he possibly could. Corvo could feel the stubble against his own cheek and the foul breath mingled with his own, “I’m disappointed. Your friend, what was his name? He was screaming the whole time. I took great pleasure in hearing my Butcher pull his will to live from him. And now, I’m going to make you scream too.”

Corvo bailed.

He didn’t wait any longer. He focused what was left of his Void magic into his mark, the world folded around him and he was transported suddenly into the body of the Whaler who had looked at his colleague for a telling second, one of the men who was holding Basso hostage. There was only a short amount of time to do what he had to. There was a shout of confusion as the chair that Corvo had been sat in was abruptly emptied and the sudden scramble of bodies. Ignoring this, he unhooked the Whaler’s arms from Basso’s, reached into the pocket and pulled out a handful of small, grey-white pebbly objects.

It had been a long shot, absolutely. But it had been worth it. His nose - _the Whaler’s nose_ \- was stinging badly, and he pulled off the mask, allowing himself to breathe freely, rubbing at it. Clearly, the nose was broken, but it bothered him none. He turned to the other Whaler who had been holding Basso and had not appeared to notice the Whaler’s change in behaviour, booted him square in the chest, knocking him off his feet and onto his back. 

He heard a woman’s voice, quite possibly another Whaler’s, shouting “Pavel,” but he ignored it, dropped the rune fragments onto the floor and felt himself finally being forced out of his host, landing on the floor behind the Whaler.

The Whaler dropped to the floor in front of Corvo, retching. Dropping to his knees, he pushed Pavel out of the way, collected the fragments into his hands and focused, feeling them dissolving into the air and boosting his magic. He felt lighter, better than he had before. It wasn’t perfect, he hadn’t regained all of his Void magic, but it was enough. He hooked his arms underneath Basso and pulled him bodily onto the bed sat just behind them, changed tack, _pulled_ from his feet all the way to his head, and a swarm of rats emerged from the floor.

They screeched collectively and began to attack. Corvo hurled himself across the room while the rest of the Whalers were distracted and lunged for his weapons, grabbing his pistol and turning around just in time to shoot dead a Whaler, point blank in the chest, who almost had their hands around his neck. 

The woman who had called Pavel’s name had pulled her own mask off now, was helping the Whaler off his knees and making for the window. Alexander apparently had the sense to get himself off the floor as well, hanging from a bookcase by his fingertips, was watching in horror as what remained of his Whaler gang either scattered or was devoured by the swarm of rats that had now spilled fully over the floor of Basso’s room, making for any living body that just happened to be nearby. Basso stayed up on the bed, pressing himself to the wall, hiding away from the edge as hard as he could, hugging his knees in terror, eyes wide.

 _Poor Basso,_ Corvo thought as he shot another Whaler square in the chest and the body fell to the floor, eaten up by rats at his feet without hesitation, _It’s going to take him a very long time to get over this._

Alexander was making his way along the bookcase in an attempt to reach the window as well. Pavel and the Whaler who had been helping him up were long gone by now, having crawled out the window and escaped into the night air, leaving their not-so-lucky colleagues lying on the floor, so many of them now no more than husks of bone and flesh. Corvo watched Alexander edging slowly across and out of the window too. It was too soon. Corvo was still holstering his weapons. He needed more time, he needed to _kill_ this man.

“I’m so sorry,” he said to Basso hurriedly as the swarm of rats dispersed beneath them, leaving them in nothing more than pained silence, blood and viscera coating the floor, “But I have to end him.”

Basso nodded, terrified, hurrying over to Jenivere and pulled the fabric off her, freeing her as she hopped around indignantly, stopping only to preen and caw in anger at Basso, who attempted to placate her with a gentle scratch around her head, still breathing hard, seemingly about to vomit, and looking around him at the mess.

Corvo fumbled with the crossbow and the foldable sword, clipping them to whichever section of belt was readily available and took off again, scrambling through the window after Alexander, taking care not to cut himself on the broken glass. The night was so dark yet so alive, full of torchlight and Watchmen’s shouts. Clearly the sudden escape of several Whalers had not gone amiss. If they weren’t heading straight back to Dunwall, Corvo knew they wouldn’t survive here for long. Life was a war even for native Cityzens, let alone a group of people who hailed from a different part of the world, unfamiliar with the City’s customs. Alexander, clearly the leader, was obviously ineffective at best, dangerous at worst, and in a way, Corvo sympathised with the Whalers. He knew what it was like to operate under poor leadership.

Alexander had to go, though. If he was permitted to escape, there was no guarantee that this wouldn’t happen again. Neither himself, nor Basso, nor Garrett were truly safe until Alexander was eliminated. Corvo dropped down on the other side of the window, took half a second to collect himself, and then looked around for some clue of where Alexander had escaped to. 

No dice.

He blinked up onto a wooden beam just above the little courtyard outside Basso’s room and wobbled along it to the edge of the roof, climbed up and up to the highest point in the immediate vicinity and took another quick look. If he was lucky, the Whaler didn’t have Void abilities like he did, or at least not to the same extent, which meant that he was essentially limited to parkour. The City seemed ideal for things like that, probably why Garrett had been so successful.

He pulled his mask out and affixed it to his face again, waiting for the lenses to whirr to attention. He rubbed his hands distractedly as he continued to search, becoming more and more desperate, willing Alexander to show himself, to drop some clue on where he had gone.

And there it was.

A flash of white shirt between buildings a few streets away betrayed his position. Corvo took off running, willing the tiles of the roofs not to collapse beneath his feet. Of all the things to deal with right now, falling into some Cityzen’s home wasn’t going to be particularly beneficial. The slippery frost didn’t make things much easier. He made a beeline for the gap in the buildings where he had last seen Alexander, where he looked down onto the next level and continued to search. Another flash of shirt gave Corvo his next destination.

He was near the base of the clocktower now, and finally caught a glimpse of Alexander and held onto it, stalking him from above. The Whaler continued to crouch-run, looking this way and that, giving no indication that he knew he was being followed.

They came to a bridge that looked like it had been cobbled together with whatever shit wood had been lying around at the time. Corvo blinked silently from one rooftop to another as Alexander crossed it with heavy footfalls and rounded a corner, dropped down, crossed more gently sloping tile roofs, and then stopped to check that the area was clear of guards.

Corvo had his opportunity, but committing cold-blooded murder on the roof was too open. He didn’t trust the Whaler to shut up, didn’t trust a Watchman not to look up for once, decided that wherever he was going was inevitably more sheltered, more secluded, safer.

Sure enough, Alexander dropped down and Corvo had to adjust his position to get a better look at where the Whaler had gone. It was a miracle that he hadn’t injured himself on the way down, but something told Corvo that he was practiced at this, that he had taken this route several times before. He watched Alexander jump onto a wooden crate and then proceed down to what looked like a street that was on an even lower level, as if it was leading to somewhere underground. A great wooden sign baring the word ‘Moorsditch’ with pale lettering on a dark background stood proud on a nearby wall. He had never been here before.

He waited until a safe distance was between him and Alexander before blinking down after him, still very aware of how low on energy he was running. It was dark down here, not illuminated by the moon as the upper levels were, but instead lit by what looked like a torch at the end of the tunnel. All the better. It would be easier to hide.

He pressed himself against the wall as soon as he had folded through the air and watched Alexander intently from the shadows as he muttered to himself and fumbled with what looked like a door embedded in the wall. 

Several moments passed while Corvo waited for Alexander to get the door open, watched him fiddle for several seconds with the lock. Watched him swing the door open, and saw his chance.

He crept out of the shadows, around the edge of the wall and jumped behind Alexander, pushed him in through the door before he had the chance to say anything and slammed it shut behind him. Just like the man now quivering on the floor in front of him had done when he had turned up at Basso’s.

Corvo advanced. Alexander backed off but didn’t run, standing his ground, his head held high, staring Corvo in the eyes as if asking him if he was going to dare attack him. Corvo cocked his head to the side in response and cracked his knuckles.

Then he lunged. Landed on top of Alexander. Tightened his fist around the Whaler’s throat and slammed his head back onto the dirt ground, ignoring the grunts. Alexander scrabbled at Corvo’s hands but found no purchase, wriggled underneath the grip but gained no respite. In the low light of the street, Corvo watched the Whaler’s face slowly go red and blood vessels bulge from his neck and temples.

“I have no intention of ever letting you go, Whaler,” Corvo spat at the man writhing underneath his grip, “So I’ll tell you what. The name of the man that you tortured is Garrett. He’s the best at what he does, and he’s stronger than you. What you did to him? He’ll survive it. He’ll heal over time. But you? You won’t live to see another sunrise. He’s survived your treatment, while you _won’t_.” He tightened his grip around the Whaler’s neck and _pushed_ , feeling his head make contact with the ground once again and another grunt of pain. His arm landed awkwardly and Corvo heard a _snap_ , quickly drowned out by a guttural scream.

Alexander’s shirt was half-undone, soaked with sweat, hair greasy and face dirty, although Corvo would have to look for it in the dim light of the street, a long shot from the slightly more put-together man he’d been at the beginning of the night. He croaked, still trying to dig fingers underneath Corvo’s grip, but began to go limp, stopped wriggling. 

Corvo paused and then released his grasp around Alexander’s neck momentarily, just enough to allow him to come to. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Corvo felt unease at this situation, but he brushed it off, telling himself that he was entitled to feel fury at how Garrett had been treated. There were bruises rapidly blooming on the neck of the Whaler underneath him, dark marks where his fingers had dug themselves in, which Corvo took the chance to inspect for a second. He drew closer. Close enough to feel Alexander’s breath on his cheek.

A swift kick between the legs threw Corvo off-guard. He rolled off to the side and balled himself up, willing himself to _just breathe_ and out of the corner of his eye saw Alexander stumbling back to his feet, unsteady and unsure but with purpose. He couldn’t force himself to unfurl. _Stand up_ he screamed internally, pushing back on the choking, forcing it back down into his chest, willing his muscles to kick back into gear, but they wouldn’t listen. They wouldn’t move.

Seconds passed. Too long. Alexander stretched above him, holding his throat and groaning. Placed a boot on his ribcage.

“That really fucking hurt,” Alexander said from above Corvo as he willed the pain to subside, “I think you should apologise for that. _Say sorry_.”

Corvo shook his head and heard a crack as Alexander’s boot made contact with his chest again. He screwed his face up into a ball, allowed himself half a second to regroup, and then rolled off to the side, well outside of Alexander’s range. Bought himself just enough time to struggle back to his knees. 

Looking up, he found that the whites of the Whaler’s eyes had gone a bright red, darkened in the dim light of the underground passageway. He was hunched over, gripping his chest with one hand, the other gripping the wall as he leant heavily against it, trying to regain his balance. Still compromised. Good.

Corvo saw his chance and got back to his knees, lunged at Alexander again and earnt himself a weak smack to the cheek. His nose started bleeding again, the wound from back at Basso’s freshly exacerbated, and he spat in Alexander’s face. Alexander recoiled.

“I’ll fucking kill you,” he screamed between heaving breaths, unhinged, throwing himself at Corvo, “You murdered Daud. You took him away from me, from us. I’ll be hailed a hero.”

Corvo wasn’t sure what he had expected. In the heat of the moment and the confusion of what Alexander had just said, he had forgotten about the crossbow that was clipped to the belt at his hip. And in a second it was gone, aimed at Corvo himself, had him pressed up against the other wall, arms raised.

“What was it they say about not bringing a knife to a gunfight?” The Whaler said, still breathless, “...Or not bringing fists to a crossbow fight, course. Somehow you managed to reverse that and still fail to win. Nice little piece of gear you have here,” he clawed at his neck again, obviously in pain, “Might take it for myself once you’re dead.”

Corvo said nothing, eyeing Alexander up and down. Offensive magic wouldn’t save him here. There wasn’t enough of it left to do anything seriously damaging, but there _was_ enough of it left to blink. 

It took him less than a second to fold through the air and appear behind Alexander again. The Whaler appeared confused for a second, looked around nonplussed while Corvo reached for his head, aiming to snap his neck. Not quick enough. 

Alexander drew his elbow up and then sharply back down into Corvo’s stomach, turned around, and Corvo heard the sharp _snap_ of the crossbow mechanisms. He wasn’t sure where it had landed, but the adrenaline kept him fighting, reaching for the pistol at his back. The Whaler jumped backwards and then the air rippled around him as he transversed off to the right another couple of inches. It wasn’t much but it _might_ have just been enough. Corvo had already fired the shot. Missed Alexander, caught his left arm in the crossfire. Not enough to stop him from fumbling another bolt into the crossbow.

_Snap._

Corvo definitely felt something that time, but again he ignored it. Dropped to one knee and loaded the pistol again. Aimed. Fired.

Bullseye.

Alexander dropped like a sack of potatoes. Corvo watched as he scrabbled at his chest, beginning to hyperventilate, or what looked like it, breath gurgling out of his throat in laboured gasps. All the blood drained from his face as Corvo limped over towards him, knocked him flat onto his back and straddled him, pinning him down by the arms and drawing in close.

“It felt good killing Daud. But he had honour. And you have none. He looked me in the eyes when I killed him.”

Alexander continued to struggle against Corvo’s grip, his eyes darting here and there, looking up, down, up, down, left, right. Anywhere but Corvo’s face. His face had fallen milky white, purple arcing beneath his eyes, flecks of blood spilling onto his lips as he coughed up what was slowly filling his lungs, what was slowly drowning him.

Corvo grabbed hold of the broken arm and twisted harshly, earning an agonised scream from the man lying underneath him, feeling the bones splinter and grind against each other, a very dark bruise rapidly forming on the skin above the break.

“You’re lucky I haven’t broken your fingers too. You’re lucky I haven’t pulled all your fingernails out you terrible, pathetic excuse for a man.”

“I- I don’t--” his words were cut off by a rasping gasp.

And that was the thing that Alexander said. Corvo finally unleashed hell and earth on the man lying on the floor beneath him. One blow had him bleeding fresh from the nose. Another had two of his teeth out. Several more, and the Whaler resembled more of a bloody pulp than a human being. Corvo felt cheekbone crunch under his fist, jaw dislocate, the windpipe crushed.

The worst thing was that it felt good. There was no remorse. It brought him pleasure to see this man dying on the floor at his hands. But was this any different to any of the other murders he’d committed? Was it any different to watching Daud die just outside his own office, in front of his own gang, not to mention all the other Whalers he’d slaughtered on his way there? Was it, after all, any different to sending Lady Boyle off to some unknown and unchecked land with a masked man with a disturbing tone in his voice when he talked about her? Was it different to shipping the Pendeton brothers off for a life of slavery? Or was it more merciful just to kill?

The difference, he supposed, was that all those had just been _business_.

 _This was personal_.

Somewhere in the back of his mind he heard the door creak open behind him. Momentarily worried that the Watch had finally found him, he whipped around, his eyes wild, undoubtedly covered in blood, judging by the iron stink. But all that was there were two other Whalers, sans masks, staring at the scene before them. A woman and a man, looking as if to bolt. He reached for the crossbow that had fallen to the floor some feet away but they didn’t move, didn’t speak, didn’t scream. In the low light of the tunnel, he saw something unrecognisable on their faces. But only for a moment.

What was left of Alexander turned to them and reached out with his right hand, wet-rasping in a wordless plea for help and a pathetic, helpless whine.

One of the Whalers, wordless, simply reached into one of his pouches and pulled out a small, silver knife, taking less than a second to aim, and then threw it, as if he didn’t care where it landed. It thudded to a halt just short of Alexander’s head, but the Whalers didn’t know that. They had already turned and left. Shut the door behind them.

So much for leadership.

Something about this display touched Corvo. The guilt that had been building up finally ticked over, so he just knelt back, nocked the final bolt in the crossbow, and fired. His hand didn’t shake nearly as much as he had expected, so it found its mark without fail. Alexander yelped once like a dog and then fell still.

Corvo breathed. Crawled off to the side, pulled himself against a wall and leant against it. He willed his heart to calm down, willed the adrenaline to stop pumping through his body, to stop making his limbs twitch. But then came the pain. He buckled.

Alexander had managed to hit him twice: once in the shoulder, and once in the thigh. He had been exceedingly lucky that the Whaler had been such a poor shot at the time, probably a result of animalistic panic and mortal fear, but that fight was over. A couple of inches more and it would have nicked an artery, or shattered a joint. He came down off the adrenal high slowly, found himself in pain, bleeding heavily, and tired. Exhausted beyond anything he had been before.

He crawled out of the door and back to Moorsditch. Hauled himself under a pile of crates, pulled off his mask, threw it against a wall where it skittered and then thudded to a halt, and sobbed into his elbow until there was nothing left to cry.

\----------------------

It was nearly dawn by the time Corvo returned to Garrett. After spending a night pacing, the Master Thief was only just about ready to assume Corvo had either been captured, killed, or stayed at Basso’s before hearing those three distinctive taps on the window again, just like on the very first night, when Corvo had collapsed into his home into a dead faint.

This time wasn’t any different.

Garrett hurried to the window and opened it, helped (more like hauled) Corvo in, and only then noticed the sheer amount of blood coating him; his face, his clothes, hair, hands. Dew that had somehow collected on his coat sparkled in little drops, and clear tear-tracks cutting through the dirt and blood on his face betrayed bad news.

Corvo forced a smile and sat himself heavily on the window sill. Garrett stepped back and observed as Corvo turned to his thigh and ripped out a bolt before Garrett could stop him. A second feathery bolt stuck out from his shoulder, appearing dangerously close to the joint, and Garrett told him in a firm voice to _stop_ before Corvo endangered himself by pulling that one out as well. Garrett wasn’t about to allow him bleed to death in his very own clocktower, and especially not when he was still too compromised to take care of the body. Corvo stopped himself mid-motion, opposite hand halfway to the injury, and stared at Garrett, unfocused.

“What happened?” Garrett’s voice betrayed apprehension.

Corvo’s eyes darted here and there, before eventually settling down on Garrett. He smiled another watery smile, and swayed dangerously. “Don’t worry. Most of it’s not mine.”

And then he collapsed.

\----------------------

When Corvo came to, it was mid afternoon.

The weather had picked up since the early morning. It was warm, but whether that was because he was laid by the brazier or because it was an unseasonable afternoon was up for debate. Garrett had not moved him from where he had fallen, but had instead brought two pillows and a crumpled blanket from the bed on the floor below. The bolt was gone from his shoulder, and although there was a deep burning pain enveloping his entire body, it didn’t hurt nearly as much as he expected it to. Whether this was a result of high pain tolerance (undeniably the product of years of getting into fights) or simply because it wasn’t a severe injury was up for question.

He looked over. Garrett was knelt by his side, still clothed in the oversized linen shirt, studying him as he woke up. The trenchcoat, still bloodied, was hanging over the back of a nearby chair, his boots lined up by a wall, standing to attention. All the weapons and belts had been removed and stashed safely on top of a nearby counter, leaving Corvo lying in his lightweight shirt and trousers underneath the blanket. Both his thigh and shoulder had been bandaged up, but the work wasn’t neat, nor was it effective. The bandages lay on top of his clothing, and blood still seeped from beneath them as he moved.

He wasn’t sure he had expected anything else from Garrett. 

Most of the blood and dirt caked on his face had been cleared and a shallow bowl with a filthy rag sat on the floor some feet away, waiting to be emptied and cleaned.

Garrett shuffled back into his line of vision with a grimace and continued to look at him. How he had managed to clean Corvo up with only one working hand was anybody’s guess, but how he did half of his activities anyway was a mystery. Garrett always seemed to find a way. The Master Thief cocked his head, paused, and then struggled back to his feet with the help of a nearby bookshelf, propping himself up against it, _pushing_ and finding himself standing upright again. He moved back out of Corvo’s field of vision, and Corvo heard him washing the bowl from a corner of the room.

“Is Basso safe?”

Corvo took a minute to formulate his answer. Fog still rolled in his brain and mild nausea gripped his stomach. His voice was nothing but a pained croak. “Yes. I think he is. I was right, about the whole Whaler thing? They’re gone now. They’re not coming back.”

“I can tell,” Garrett said, trying to ignore the unease in his guts. He really had washed a lot of blood from Corvo’s face, not to mention the state of his coat and boots, and the implications disturbed him. “Seems like it was a pretty bad fight.”

Dancing around the subject matter was all Corvo could muster at this time. Garrett avoided Corvo’s gaze as he worked, cleaning the mud off the floor, hobbling up and down the stairs, making tea for both of them.

Corvo just stared up into the ceiling, watching the birds chatter with each other, hopping from rafter to rafter. He didn’t have anything else to say, and neither, it appeared, did Garrett. He allowed the thief to bring him a small amount of dried food and watched him in silence as he ate, and the sun set, frost forming once again on the outside of the clocktower. 

That night, he rewound his bandages by himself and watched as Garrett slept from the other end of the clocktower. His mind drifted once again to what had happened less than 24 hours ago in Black Alley and wondered if anyone had found the body yet. 

He wasn’t sure if he cared.

\----------------------

It wasn’t long before Corvo felt strong enough to find his way across the clocktower plaza to the Crippled Burrick. Garrett still wasn’t well enough to leave his home, so Corvo opted to go alone, grateful in a way for the privacy. He’d left while Garrett was asleep anyway.. Watch patrols were out stronger than he had ever seen them before, and posters of both his own mask and the Whaler mask littered the walls of the City, so he went bare-faced and hoped that nobody would spot him creeping on the rooftops.

When he arrived at the Burrick, Basso was still clearing up the mess, working his way slowly but surely over the floor which had begun to smell. Were it summer, were it much warmer than it was, the smell would have attracted significant Watch attention by now and Basso would be under arrest, but the rotting process was slowed thanks to the ice layers that had descended on the rest of the City. Corvo picked up a mop and got to work with Basso, cleaning up what remained of the Whaler faction, squeezing the mop into the bucket of filthy water and then repeating the process. 

Despite this, Basso wasn’t pleased at all to see Corvo. He allowed him to come in and help, but didn’t say anything, only turned to hand him the mop. Jenivere, his magpie, snapped at his fingers as he drew in to give her a scratch around the head.

They worked together for a while, continuing to clean the floors down, and then the other surfaces; tables, walls, chairs. Corvo covered the broken window with a sheet while Basso finally went to make tea, and then at down as he watched Corvo sweep up what remained of the glass on the floor and throw it away. Still, Basso had not said a word.

Understanding that maybe now wasn’t the best time to talk, Corvo made for the door, double-checking that nothing else needed cleaning, but Basso cleared his throat and made a small noise, signalling for him to stay. Corvo turned around, anxious. He wasn’t sure what to expect out of this conversation, but he knew it needed to happen. He couldn’t just run away and avoid it, like he had been doing with so many things as of late. He took a seat opposite Basso, and at his command, poured himself a cup of tea and sat with it cradled in his hands, rolling the vessel gently to and fro, hoping it would start to warm him up.

Basso sighed before he began to speak. “I’m not sure what you did with the rats and the… whatever else it was that you did, but honestly, I’m too fucked up to be thinking about that right now. All I want to know right now is if you’ve gotten rid of ‘em, the men who were threatening Garrett and myself.”

Corvo nodded, trying to dispel the unpleasant, painful pinching where he’d patched his wounds up and the aches in his bones. He had wrapped the bandages too tightly and he was _feeling_ it. “Yes. Most of them escaped but I killed their ringleader. He won’t be bothering us any more.”

Basso paused - and then nodded, seemingly satisfied with his answer, and took another sip of his tea. “I’m going to be honest with you Corvo. I read about what happened with the Empress in Gristol. I can’t say I really care about politics as a rule, but your involvement in what happened is…” he paused, “Worrying. Garrett, he’s got his own choices to make, but I don’t want to have anything to do with you.”

Corvo dipped his head. He understood. It was frustrating that he was still getting flak for Jessamine’s murder, especially as it had hurt him more than anyone else in the Isles, but history wasn’t his to control. He quelled the anger bubbling in his chest. There was a moment where they sat in silence again and Jenivere hopped around the desk and onto her perch, staring at Corvo apprehensively with her big black eyes, as if she were judging him.

“The Watch paid me a visit. You should know. Thankfully I was upstairs at the time but if they had seen the state of this place... Anyway, they asked me if I’d seen anyone with those, eh, masks on. Told me they’d seen them around this area. Said they suspected me of somethin’.”

Corvo nodded, unsurprised. There was no chance that the Watch hadn’t noticed that something big had been going on. If anything, he was surprised that it hadn’t happened sooner.

But what came next both surprised him, and did not.

“So if you _ever_ come here again after tonight, I will turn you in. I don’t _care_ if you have a kid to go home to, or a wife, or a husband, parents, grandparents, or a job, I will hand you over. You are a danger to me and my business. I’m already on thin fuckin’ ice with the General, and you brought more trouble here, with those dangerous fucking bastards. I don’t know what you had to do with those men, but I won’t tolerate it. So finish your tea and _get out._ And don’t you _dare_ come back.”

Corvo stopped for a moment as his brain processed what he was hearing.

“But--”

Basso shook his head, his eyes dark. “Get out.”

So without question, Corvo downed what was left of his tea, stood up, and left out the front door. Climbed back up the slippery steps and blinked onto the roof, taking a moment to regain his balance, anger burning _hard_ in his chest. He had done so much to scare off the Whalers, to protect and look after Garrett, to dispatch Alexander. He felt his face burning. How dare Basso? How dare he throw him out like that? _After all he’d **fucking** done_.

But he ignored the anger, the rage, the hatred - hurried off back to the clocktower, pulling his coat around himself, focusing on the rhythm of his feet as they crossed the tiles quietly. Refrained from just letting the fury of what had happened over the last week bubble over.

By the time he returned, Garrett was still asleep. Once again, he was pale, looked sickly against the silver strands of moonlight, slick with sweat, crying and lashing out against whatever horrors had come to haunt him tonight. Corvo pulled off his boots, threw them off to the side and crawled into bed, pulling Garrett in tight while he slept, screwing his eyes shut and cursing himself for ever leaving the relative safety of Dunwall.

He listened to the thunking of the mechanisms above him. Now he understood how it helped Garrett.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hoooo boyos that was a ride.


	20. Damage Control

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Corvo and Garrett come to equilibrium.

The air was surprisingly clear for a place like the City. It was deep in the throes of its own industrial revolution, with factories, mills, steelworks and other dark industrial buildings all simultaneously belching smoke into the air and pollutants into the rivers. Cass was surprised that anything managed to survive here, even the rats, the pigeons. It was even more wondrous that anything more complex could find ways to live - how Cityzens managed here, and not only managed, but built lives, homes, businesses, eluded her. It always had, and she knew it always Eventually she came to the conclusion that if she could, then everyone else could do too. It was just miserable. Miserable and shit, even in Auldale, even in the richest, nicest areas of the City. Misery didn’t always mean death, and whether that was a good thing or not was up for debate. She wasn’t a philosopher, she was a Whaler.

No, not a Whaler.

An ex-Whaler.

Finally making the connection was freeing in some ways. She had _never_ been truly suited for that life, had never truly been comfortable with what Daud or Alexander were doing, had hated the idea that people were dying because of her leaders. And now, that expectation had been lifted off her. She was clean now. She had never spilled any blood herself, but had aiding the murderers really been any different? 

In other ways, it was terrifying. This group, this gang of thieves and murderers and criminals had been _part of her_ for several years now. It had been where she saw so much, did more impactful work than she had done anywhere else. She had come to be respected, to be trusted by more than a few men as Alexander’s less terrifying and unhinged counterpart. But now all of that was gone. It had never been hers to keep, and now she had memories of her own to make.

Pavel had told her that he felt the same, although Cass suspected that he was less concerned about the disbanding of what remained of the Whalers, and more concerned about where to find his next meal. When she asked him if he had a place to go, he simply shrugged, and told her he’d find a way.

She suspected that eventually he would go on to become a contract thief. He certainly had the brains, the skill, and the morals for it.

The morning was bright and cold. The only ship leaving for the Empire was early, too early to worry about finding a bed, so they’d fumbled their way to the docks and found themselves drinking and eating in a nearby tavern, spending what little gold they’d managed to loot from the surrounding area, pooling whatever was left for two beds in third class on the ship to Dunwall. 

In a way, it was a celebration. Pavel was glad that Alexander was gone, was relieved that now he was able to go about his life without worrying about the repercussions, at least not to the extent that he had been doing. Cass had questioned him on why he had thrown the dagger without aiming, but he said nothing, and after some thought, it made perfect sense to her too.

They talked until the dawn broke about shared memories, and when the morning came, they departed the tavern quietly, left their dues on the counter, and headed for the ship. They watched it dock and workers carry freight off it, quickly followed by passengers; from the rich all the way down to those with visible ribs, eyeballs rattling around in shrunken skulls, barely wearing rags on their backs. How they had managed to scrounge the money for the journey was anyone’s guess, but the bigger mystery was why they had chosen to come here, of all places.

They sat on a nearby wall as the crew prepared the ship for the next voyage, loaded it with more cargo, hauling huge crates and boxes here and there, and several hours later, the ship started boarding passengers again. There weren’t many people there, maybe three in addition to the two ex-Whalers, so Cass paid her dues and began to board.

Pavel held back.

“What are you doing?” Cass asked, what remained of her smile still lingering on her face. She grabbed onto his coat arm and tugged gently on it, “C’mon, we have to go. It’ll leave without us.”

Pavel shrugged and stroked his stubble thoughtfully. “I think I’d like to stay here. At least for a little bit longer. Dunwall is old - feels stale. I want something new, even if it is only for a few years. This City has so much untapped potential, so much to exploit, and it would be such a shame to waste it.”

What? What did he mean?

Cass dropped her grin and cocked her head quizzically. “I’m not sure what you mean. I thought you wanted to get out. I thought you wanted to go back home.” Her voice was full of hurt. This was so unexpected, and it was true; he had talked at length about how much he wanted to go back to Dunwall. Maybe, she supposed, it was actually Alex he wanted to get away from. Maybe it wasn’t so much the surroundings as the situation. She had seen it so many times before, even felt it herself. Everything felt horrible and unbearable until the problem was taken away, until Alexander had been (presumably) killed.

“I mean I’m staying here,” he said in response, his tone all too blunt, entirely characteristic, standing his ground, “I’ll keep in touch. Make sure you write to me too. I’ll be waiting to hear from you.”

Cass wasn’t sure what to do. She knew that if Pavel stayed here, there was a very good chance that she’d never see him again, but she hated this place so much. It was dark, dirty, cramped, and it was true, the northern isles weren’t actually that much better, but any improvement was still an improvement. She wanted to go to Serkonos, to find a sunny spot where she could settle down and enjoy her life.

So instead of telling him all this, she just nodded. She understood how it was, and she knew she couldn’t force him to come with her, not that she’d ever want to anyway. Pavel was a free spirit, not to be held down or controlled or commanded by anyone, it would be an insult to his character, and now he was free to discover himself after the Whalers. Why would she ever take that away from him, regardless of how it made her feel to lose contact with a close friend?

She settled for a smile.

“Goodbye then, Pav. It’s been fun.”

Pavel stepped back and nodded. “Go out there and be brilliant.”

She smiled sadly, turned and boarded the ship, heading straight up to the deck, watching as Pavel took a seat on the wall where they’d been sat together not two hours earlier, and looked up at her. She waved as the ship took off, held back the sour feeling in her stomach and watched the City get smaller and smaller until Pavel faded from her vision, the buildings became barely more than a shadow in the fog, then disappeared altogether.

\----------------------

Corvo had sagely decided not to tell Garrett what had happened while he visited Basso earlier that morning. In fact, he had decided against telling him that he had left the clocktower at all, knowing that whatever he let on would inevitably lead to more and more questions. Questions had never been a good sign in his eyes. The less people asked of him, the better.

Instead, he simply opted to allow himself one morning to sleep in, rest and keep quiet, to seclude himself from the outside world before he began to think about heading back to Dunwall. He hid under the covers as Garrett finally woke, rolled onto his back, and then stared into the air, apparently at nothing for a very long time. Corvo, still pretending to be asleep, cracked his eyes open and observed for as long as he knew he would stay undetected, forcing his breathing to stay long, deep and calm. Garrett was motionless, his face blank. Nothing would have indicated that he was even awake, aside from the eyes open wide, staring dead into the ceiling, and the occasional downward twitch of his mouth. If Corvo had any sense, he knew he’d reach up and feel that stubble underneath his fingers, ask Garrett what was wrong, if there was anything he could do for him, maybe he’d muster up the courage to tell him about what happened with the Whalers near Black Alley, maybe. 

But he didn’t. He simply watched. And waited.

Some time passed. Whether it was minutes or hours Corvo couldn’t say. At one point, he fell asleep again and when he woke up the light was bright enough for it to be midday, but still Garrett had not moved. He wasn’t sure if he should check that Garrett hadn’t actually just died in his sleep, but before he had the chance to move and check for any sign of breath in his chest or a pulse in his neck, Garrett finally shifted. 

His mouth twitched downwards momentarily before finally setting in a hard line and a deep sigh, as if he had been willing himself to move for some time now. Corvo watched as the muscles in his jaw juddered, he swallowed hard, and then turned over and sat up, the weight distribution on the bed shifting here and there. Not enough. He had lost a lot of weight. Made sense, considering he had to be cajoled into eating anything these days. He seemed so lost in what had happened while he was a captive of Alexander’s, and the implication that the bastard had died didn’t really seem to put him any at ease. If anything, it had actually made him seem worse, but maybe that was just Corvo’s imagination.

It was even longer still before Garrett found his way from sitting to standing. Took him too long to pull his head out of his hands and haul himself onto his feet, and when he did, he swayed where he stood for a moment. Corvo moved, shuffling himself into the bedspace that Garrett had been occupying, enjoying the heat, but still concerned. His hair had been growing ever longer and his facial hair was growing back in for lack of opportunity to shave. But was it the lack of opportunity? Or had Garrett been neglecting to take care of himself? Had he been able to shave?

Come to think of it, probably not. 

Garrett finally walked off towards the stairs and Corvo rolled onto his back, opening his eyes. When Corvo thought about it, Garrett _had_ probably noticed, but had not said anything. It was his job to notice small details, his life depended on it, so to think he had remained undetected was a folly. 

Or maybe Garrett now just trusted him enough not to mention it.

He buried his head back under the covers, surrounding himself in warmth and darkness, and fell asleep again. Dreamt of home, of Emily. For a moment, he almost felt like he could reach out and grab her, to hold her close, know she was safe. More for him than for her. He missed her so badly, he needed the normality back in his life, he needed his daughter back by his side. The one constant throughout the last few years.

He woke up again not that much later. The sounds of the Stonemarket plaza drifted in through the window, quiet compared to the crackling of the brazier above him. This time, he forced himself out of bed, decided not to fall asleep again. It was true that there wasn’t anything _pressing_ as such to do, but at the same time, he knew there was something, somewhere to take care of. There was _always_ something.

Garrett was sat at the table upstairs, looking over the plans that he’d made so many years ago for his leathers and armour for what seemed like the hundredth time. It was still too early, his hands, arm and leg still weren’t even nearly healed enough to go and find the materials, let alone craft them into such an important and work-intensive piece of gear. Corvo knew that, and he knew it was driving Garrett up the wall. Staying inside the clock tower with no hope of leaving hadn’t been good for him, and they were seeing the results.

“Nice to see you’re finally awake,” Garrett said as he saw Corvo approaching out of the corner of his eye, “I was beginning to think you’d been poisoned.”

Corvo snorted, shrugged and then took a seat on the window sill, leaning back and looking out, down onto the plaza below, gently thumbing the wood on which he sat. It was much quieter than he had expected for a day like this. 

“I’m just tired.” It was more of a surrender than any sort of meaningful statement.

“Tell me about it,” Garrett continued, not bothering to look up from his plans, and neglecting to say any more about it. That was all they really needed. 

“I hope you enjoyed your excursion last night.”

Corvo wasn’t aware that Garrett had noticed that he had been missing, but he also wasn’t surprised. Unsure of what to say next, and opting not to tell the Master Thief about where he’d been or why, he simply nodded and dropped his gaze. Garrett probably knew already. Garrett knew everything.

“So what are you going to do now?”

Corvo shrugged. “I’m not sure. I should probably make my way back home. I have a daughter.”

“You left her by herself?” Garrett didn’t sound shocked, but the tone was judgemental to some degree. Corvo recoiled in shame.

“No! No. I mean, she’s safe with family at the moment. I just want to go and see her. She’s called Emily.”

“Oh.” Garrett said, as he continued to make notes on his blueprints, not seeming particularly interested. Corvo wasn’t sure if he had expected anything else from him. “So are you going then?”

“I suppose,” Corvo said in response, “I can stay for a bit longer if you want. If you need me to do anything for you.”

Garrett looked at him and then shook his head. “No, no. I’m fine. You can go.”

They both knew that that was a lie, but Corvo nodded anyway, ignoring whatever feelings that sentence brought with it. Ignored the burning rising from the pit of his stomach and threatening to spill over, just how it felt after he talked with Basso early that morning. He let his jaw clench for a moment and then turned sharply, heading back downstairs and pulling on his boots. He hadn’t expected that it would end like this; in more rejection that stung like a knife wound in his belly and burned like a fire in his throat and cheeks, but he was too tired to bother fighting, despite the many hours of sleep he’d had already. After a moment, Garrett appeared at the top of the stairs and looked down on him as he fumbled with the fastenings on his boots that had been fraying as of late. Corvo felt his gaze on the top of his head but didn’t bother to look up, didn’t bother risking some kind of emotional outburst.

“You’re going _now_?” The tone was too innocent.

Corvo rolled his eyes in an attempt to pacify himself before snapping shut one of the fastenings with a bit too much force and looked back up at Garrett. “Yes.” _because I’m not wanted here_.

Garrett narrowed his eyes. “I thought you meant you were going later. Tomorrow or something. You can stay for some tea if you want, but if you need to get back to your daughter then I understand.”

 _I need you to stop being such a difficult bastard,_ Corvo thought, but made do with a nod. “We can have tea.”

He limped back upstairs and took the kettle out of Garrett’s hands as he struggled with it, prepared the drink himself and took it back to the table where Garrett had sat himself. He took care to ensure it wouldn’t spill as he set it down near Garrett’s one good hand and then settled down himself, his boots still on. Garrett played with the cup in front of him, uneasy, while Corvo watched.

“I feel like you’re interviewing me,” Garrett said after some time passed and he finally looked Corvo in the eye, although the gaze deviated frequently, “Did you want to talk about something?”

Corvo leaned back into the chair and finished off his tea. “Yes, actually,” but there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that he was going to tell Garrett he’d effectively been banned from talking to Basso ever again, “I want to know you’re definitely going to be okay. I don’t want to leave and then to have you dying of thirst or infection because you’re unable to look after yourself. I can afford a few more days, hell, even a week if you need the help. I just… I wish you’d talk to me. Talk to me about what you’re going through because I want to help.”

Garrett looked at Corvo for a moment before his gaze darted away again, the air between them growing awkward. Corvo wasn’t going to let him avoid his questions any more, especially not if he was going to leave him by himself in the clocktower.

“What do you mean?” Garrett’s eyes were narrowed, “What do you want?”

Frustration was beginning to mount again in Corvo’s chest.

“Garrett, you need help.”

“You keep acting like I can’t look after myself.”

“ _Because you can’t_ ,” Corvo said suddenly, and a bit too loudly, rising sharply to his feet as the frustration that had been bubbling up over the last few days ticked over and Garrett jumped, withdrawing his hands quickly, “You can’t go out. You can’t make yourself food or drink. You spend all night, every night screaming and crying, you eat _only_ when I’m watching and you’re losing weight. I don’t know how long it was but you just stared into space for _hours_ this morning,” his voice cracked and he took a second to swallow and turn around to hide his face for a moment before looking back round, regaining his composure before beginning to pace distractedly, “Why do you do that? Why won’t you tell me what’s going on? Why do I have to just _make do_ with trying to comfort you when you wake up in the middle of the night and you’re _convinced_ that someone’s about to kill you, when you’ll just keep going the next day and pretend it never happened? What about me? What about how I feel?”

Garrett raised his head, slowly bringing the cup of tea to his mouth again, failing to hide the wince as which fingers that weren’t broken exploded in pain again, and the ones that were just went numb. Corvo was sure that the motion was supposed to be calm but a quake in his good arm and a tremble in his bottom lip betrayed his feelings, and whether it was indignation, fear, or something else wasn’t clear. He was slow, took his time in drinking the tea, placed it back down on the table with an arm that was still shaking and looked away, his hand now balled into a fist, which was quickly tucked into his lap. It was almost like he was trying to make himself as small as possible, to box himself up and hide himself away. He looked old. Far too old.

Corvo came to a stop near the window stared at Garrett from the corner of the room while he continued to look down into his lap and formulate his reply. It was a solid two or three minutes before Garrett even began to say anything, and even then it was disjointed and unsure. He stumbled over his own words, but still failed to hide the shaking of his voice; the cracks and hiccups alike.

“If I had any sense I’d throw you out right now.”

 _Of course you would, because apparently that’s what people like to do here,_ Corvo thought, but held his tongue and continued to stare at Garrett from the other side of the room, waiting for him to continue talking.

“Your feelings have _nothing_ to do with this. _My_ feelings have nothing to do with this. None of that matters now. It’s all over - it’s done. You-”

“Are you _dense_?” it was out before Corvo could either allow Garrett to continue, or stop himself, and for a second he believed he really had upset Garrett enough to get himself kicked out as the thief wrinkled his nose and shook his head in something that looked halfway like disgust and halfway like contempt, “What in the god’s names do you mean? _Of course_ it matters. _I’m worried._ How are you supposed to keep living a life that’s fulfilling for you if you can’t eat or sleep or get outside? That’s not a life. That sounds more like a prison to me.”

Garrett shrugged, “I’ll make do.”

Corvo did a double take and tried to stop himself from yelling out of frustration, “You can’t just keep snubbing me like that! This is serious!”

“Why do you care so much anyway?”

There was a moment of silence, and Corvo just sighed and sat down on the sill again, lowering his head into his hands, trying to convince himself not to either yell at Garrett or leave there and then. He regrouped. “Listen. I get that you don’t want to let me in. I get that you don’t want any help from me, I went too far, I’ll admit that. But I care about you. We’ve been through a lot together. I don’t want any of our work to go to waste, and I don’t want you to hurt yourself. If you are really, really sure you don’t want to talk to me, then that’s fine, you can tell me and I’ll go, and I won’t come back. But I also don’t want you to feel like you’re alone. I don’t want you to feel like you have to struggle through this on your own because it’s pointless and I’ve been through it myself and it’s shit and _you don’t deserve it_. You have _never_ deserved it. Garrett, you don’t have to _punish_ yourself. You haven’t done anything bad or immoral; I’m not sure what you’re sitting on in that brain of yours but whatever it’s telling you, it’s _wrong_.”

Garrett’s face was burning red now and he was looking into his lap, shuffling in his seat, visibly uncomfortable. Corvo could practically see the cogs turning in his head, see him trying to dream up some witty, sarcastic remark so he could smoothly rebuff him, turn this situation on its head so _once again_ it would be Corvo who would be in the wrong, so that he’d be the one who’d be sent away and forbidden from talking with Garrett ever again. He wouldn’t be surprised.

It was a solid three minutes of uncomfortable silence. The mechanisms of the clock thudded away above them and in between pointed glances at Garrett, Corvo watched the dust motes as they floated through the air. He wondered briefly how easy it was for Garrett to clean this whole place on a good day. The clock tower housed literal wild birds. The roof was full of holes. Of course Garrett wasn’t able to keep the place clean, even in all his full mobility, even with his special arrows with the lengths of rope attached, even with his harness and leathers when he still had them, even then. He pulled himself out of his tangent to look at Garrett. He looked like he was about to cry.

Another moment passed in near-perfect silence.

Another moment. Apprehension mounted in Corvo’s chest.

“Stay.” 

The word was quiet, almost inaudible. It was a moment before Corvo actually registered what Garrett had said, and then processed the implications. Garrett wanted him to stay, to stay here, with him. It wasn’t simply an instant rejection like it had been with Basso. Corvo breathed out. A protracted flow of tension relief.

“Please.”

That little word said everything. Corvo didn’t feel happiness, or contentedness, or even relief. He just felt deflated. He stood up from the window sill, suddenly feeling nothing but old, and walked over to Garrett, crouched down in front of him. Shaking, he raised a hand to the Master Thief’s face and cupped his chin gently, thumbing the stubble again with the pads on his fingers roughened with callouses, the product of years of wet work. They had been receding lately. His hands had been returning to smooth softness, just like his mind as he’d settled back into a life of protecting the Empress - his _daughter_. There were the occasional training sessions, and even Emily had been starting to ask for lessons on handling a blade, which he’d obliged of course; best to teach her how to protect herself on the off-chance that something untoward happened _yet again_ either to him or her, but aside from that, he’d been relegated to doing paperwork and looking menacing by her side at formal events, so his life had largely been easy, free from heavy combat. Well, it had been, but that too had been kicked up like silt over the previous week.

Garrett didn’t draw back or flinch but appeared to melt into Corvo’s hand. Maybe he had grown used to Corvo’s presence, had come to appreciate (or Void forbid - enjoy) his comforting touches in the dead of night. He tipped his head in towards Corvo’s palm, eyes closed, and froze as allowed Corvo to gently stroke the side of the his face with the tips of his fingers. They sat like that for what felt like hours. Corvo felt an ache beginning to build in his arm, but Garrett was enjoying the physical contact so much that he looked like he was about to fall asleep to the rhythmic stroking. Who was Corvo to take that away from him?

He was still so weak, so thin. Like he could break at any moment.

There were several more minutes of silence while Corvo continued to crouch down on the floor next to Garrett’s feet and stroke the ghosts of the bruises on his face, before Garrett’s breathing slowed to the distinctive, deep in-out of light sleep. His head slipped off the hand that had been holding it up on the back of the chair and he woke abruptly, looking around startled. Deciding that here wasn’t the best place for this, Corvo stood up, scooped Garrett into his arms like he had on the night that he had rescued him from the Whalers, took the cup from Garrett’s half-limp hand and set it aside, and then carried him downstairs while Garrett drifted in and out of sleep in his arms. There was no struggling, no arguing, no fighting. It was quite possibly the most peaceful that Corvo had seen Garrett in days.

The bed creaked as Corvo deposited Garrett on it, lying him on his side, ensuring the pillow was tucked comfortably underneath his head before sitting down, taking off his boots again, and settling in behind Garrett, pulling him in close like he did on the bad nights. Garrett was only half-awake it seemed, but he was conscious enough to be playing with Corvo’s fingers as they draped around over the top of his side and settled in front of his stomach.

“I have a question,” Corvo began, and waited for permission to go ahead. 

There was a long pause. For a moment Corvo thought Garrett was going to say no, or had fallen asleep, but eventually he nodded.

Corvo took a chance.

“Do you trust me?”

Another long silence. Garrett didn’t move, simply stared into the wall on the other side of the bed while Corvo spooned him, “I don’t know.”

That, supposed Corvo, was the most reasonable answer. From his perspective, Garrett was quiet, introverted but not shy, and didn’t trust strangers on the best of days. Years and years of threat to his life had inevitably left him closed off and isolated, an island in the sea of Cityzens; the men and women in the plaza, the guards, the nobility. All out to get him. Corvo wasn’t sure of his situation growing up, but he wouldn’t be surprised if something had been going on then too. He understood that Basso was also close with Garrett, but how often did they meet? What proportion of his time did Garrett spend up here, alone, not talking to anyone?

And that was only the beginning of it. It was one thing to become accustomed to spending all his time by himself, save for the wild birds in the rafters, but it was completely another to have it invaded by Corvo himself, who was at least twice as heavy as Garrett and much taller, with no chance of getting rid of him safely. When Garrett had so clearly emphasised his distaste for murder, Corvo had come back covered in blood, stinking of iron and flesh. Corvo had done some questionable things in his life, and he didn’t doubt that Garrett had some kind of sixth sense for that kind of thing. Even when Corvo had been looking after him, patching him up, helping him recover (physically) from the abuse he’d endured at the hands of the Butcher under Alexander’s command, he had never once seemed truly at ease. There had been moments when Garrett looked like he was about to open up and let Corvo help him, but those closed off very quickly. Too quick for Corvo to fully take advantage of those moods, too quick to slip in past Garrett’s defences.

Yet despite this, he was much warmer and open to Corvo’s approaches following his rescue from the chapel, although that wasn’t exactly a surprise. Corvo didn’t really need to think about that much more; he’d had enough of it already.

He resisted the urge to ask Garrett why he said that he didn’t know, and instead just opted to continue holding him. Garrett still didn’t appear to have anything to say to this and relaxed into Corvo’s arms.

“I’m sorry about what I said earlier,” Corvo finally said, hoping that Garrett hadn’t fallen asleep again, “It was wrong.”

Garrett’s voice was muffled by his own arm and the pillow when he responded, “You’re forgiven.”

The machinery thudded above the pair, which Corvo counted; one, two, three, repeat. Military, like his days in the Royal Guard. The light slowly darkened outside. The candles by the bedside burnt down to the end and then sputtered out, lowering them both into cold darkness. Corvo scrambled underneath the scratchy sheets and then manipulated them so Garrett would be covered too, so their combined body heat wouldn’t go to waste. It was probably a better idea just to go upstairs and light the brazier but Corvo didn’t want to ruin the moment. It almost felt like Garrett was within his grasp.

He reached up and ran the back of his finger up and down the nape of Garrett’s neck, occasionally taking a moment to play with his patchy, tufty hair, rolling it in between his fingers, brushing the back of his ear, going back to his neck, tracking the edges of the shirt with his fingertips. Garrett shivered and shuffled backwards, pressed the back of his head into Corvo’s hands insistently. He stopped.

“Do you want me to keep going?” Corvo wasn’t the fastest learner out there, but he’d very quickly realised that the best way to get any sort of answer regarding any level of emotion with Garrett was with a simple yes or no question.

He was rewarded with a nod, as if he thought Corvo hadn’t registered the answer. “Yes.”

Oh-so quietly.

So Corvo continued stroking Garrett’s head and neck, only sporadically moving to lightly brush his shoulders or the top of his back, goosebumps springing up beneath his hands. He noticed, 

in a disturbing revelation, when he moved the shirt out of the way to take a peek with no protestation from Garrett, that he could see all too clearly the shoulder blades and outline of the vertebrae in the back of his neck and the top of his back, the papery skin stretched almost too taut. His stomach sank.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Garrett shook his head quickly to Corvo’s dismay, but then it slowed and he shrugged in what looked like a change of heart. “I don’t know. Yes. Maybe.”

“Well, I’m here if you do want to talk. You’re safe. I’m not going to go anywhere.” He lifted his arm and shuffled it underneath Garrett’s neck until it came to rest across his chest, “Not unless you want me to.” 

He felt Garrett nod and then settle into the protective barrier, shifting around to get comfortable, and then eventually, the breathing relaxed into a long, slow draw. Garrett moved - jerked, jumped, lashed out - sometimes while falling asleep, Corvo had realised from the past few days, and he allowed the thief to continue sleeping in his arms while he murmured into the pillow and his fingers and legs twitched as if he were running around, stealing things, as if he were happy and healthy.

It wasn’t long before the combination of the warmth, Garrett safe under his arms, and the clock mechanisms before Corvo fell asleep too.

He drifted.

Once again he was woken by Garrett thrashing underneath him. Garrett screaming. Garrett crying. Corvo tightened his grip around the thief but was met only with more frantic wriggling and a scream, a terrified wail.

Corvo relented, pulled his arms out from underneath Garrett and withdrew as he hit and kicked and yelled. Recoiled as an elbow made contact with the side of his head and only then rolled back out of bed, into the freezing cold. Garrett still didn’t appear to be awake. His eyes were still closed, he was still trying to fight. Worried that he was going to roll over off the bed, or hurt himself, Corvo climbed back on the bed and placed one hand on Garrett’s good shoulder, tapping him insistently on the side of the face with the other. “Garrett, wake up.”

Garrett did not wake up, so Corvo tried again, harder this time, leaning over the top of him, “Wake up.”

This time, Garrett did wake up. He jumped, hard, at the sight of Corvo towering above him and held back the reflexive punch. Corvo stopped still for a minute while Garrett began to stop hyperventilating and then dropped back down, returned to his side and helped him sit up again. “Deep breaths,” he said, coaxing Garrett into breathing along with him, in and out, “You’re safe. You’re here, it’s just me. I’m not going to hurt you.”

Garrett followed Corvo’s motions to keep breathing deeply and sagged against the wall while Corvo took the opportunity to get up and bring Garrett some water. He returned with a cup and pushed it into Garrett’s hands, who shook his head tearfully.

“No… No more poppy… I can’t-”

“It’s fine, it’s just water,” Corvo said, his voice as reassuring as it could be under the circumstances, “No poppy here. Just drink something. It might help.”

There was a short pause before Garrett shook his head and placed the cup back on the nightstand, sinking back into the bed and turning away from Corvo, pulling the sheets back over himself and wrapping himself up. Silence. Momentarily, Corvo believed that Garrett had gone back to sleep, so he went upstairs and lit the brazier, returned, and then got back into bed.

All was well, he thought. Maybe the thief had fallen asleep this time? Maybe with a bit more success.

But all he was rewarded with was the heaving of Garrett’s chest, poorly disguised under the occasional ruffle of the bed sheets, and the choked, bitten-off ends of hastily-covered cries. Corvo wasn’t sure if he was supposed to pretend he hadn’t heard any of it or not. 

He decided against it. Asked Garrett for permission again and then pulled him in when given the go-ahead. Stroked his hair while the sobbing became louder and less disguised, let Garrett lie on his back and huddle closer to Corvo for comfort while crying. Corvo wrapped his arms protectively around Garrett’s chest and Garrett held onto them with his hand, like he was going to be taken away.

“I thought I was going to die,” Garrett croaked between raw, ragged weeping, “I thought nobody was ever going to find me. I didn’t know what I’d done wrong and I thought they were going to torture me until I _died_.”

The sobs soon became intense, bordered on hysterical as Garrett shuddered and choked and hiccuped his way through what he wanted to say.

“Every time I go to sleep they’re _there_ to hurt me again and they won’t go away. I know they’re going to murder me and then dump my body in some cold, dark hole and it _doesn’t go away_. I can _feel_ how they hurt me and it won’t stop it won’t-”

Corvo bit back his own tears at Garrett’s disclosure, nodded and made gentle, comforting _shushing_ noises as he continued to stroke the thief’s head, rubbed calming circles into his back, listening to him intently as he finally confided in Corvo. He wiped his tears away, held him close, and felt the frantic heartbeat underneath his arms. It was true, most of the Whalers that had remained in the City were dead now. It was also true that that didn’t do anything to comfort him, or make it easier. Garrett was right. The damage had been done. Alexander was dead, but as if that was any consolation.

“This isn’t going to stop is it?” Garrett’s words rang in Corvo’s head. He was suffering so much.

 _Nothing_ that Corvo could ever do was going to make this better. There was _nothing_ that could be done to relieve Garrett of this pain but time and care and support, and even then it was sketchy, there was no guarantee that he would ever recover to how he had been before. Garrett continued talking to Corvo, not all of it entirely comprehensible, allowing himself to be held, before eventually, slowly, the mumbling trailed off again. 

“Can I do anything to help you?” Corvo said after a while, his knuckles white around Garrett’s shoulders, the result of a combination of how tightly he was holding onto the thief and his own hate and grief for what had happened to him.

Garrett shook his head again. An uncomfortable reminder of how out of his depth they both were in dealing with this. An unpleasant indicator that there really was nothing that Corvo could do to help, except try to mitigate the symptoms, to do damage control. And that was maybe what hurt most of all.

There were several more minutes as the pair laid under the covers together in silence, watching the orange light from the brazier shift and filter down through the floorboards above, casting them both in slatted, warm light. He stroked the side of Garrett’s cheek again, slowly, rhythmically, in time with his breathing. It was now or never.

Corvo collected himself. Willed his heart to stop hammering.

It was almost too quiet to be heard above the machinery above them.

“I like you, Garrett.”

There was a moment of silence. Then...

“I like you too.”

The bed shifted as Garrett turned to the best of his ability. He allowed Corvo to scoop him into his arms and plant a kiss on the top of his forehead near the hairline, and then another on the bridge of his nose, rocking him gently.

He wasn’t going to let Garrett slip away from him.


	21. The Fact of the Matter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Corvo brings Garrett gifts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick warning for spice at the end of the chapter, don't read around your family or at work. Hope you have all had a wonderful holiday season and apologies for missing last week's chapter. Also shout out to [Sardine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/not_a_single_sardine) for beta-ing.

Garrett and Corvo spent the next few days in each other’s arms, not spending much time out of either of the other’s sights, spending a lot of time in bed together, some of it peaceful, and some of it not so. 

One night, Corvo crept from the clocktower, and, with Garrett’s full knowledge, went to raid the Eastwick estate on the other side of the City for all he could carry in fine alcohol, and returned with two decanters of whiskey, a bottle of fine wine, and several packets of dried food (the fancy stuff that the nobility preferred to eat). On Corvo’s suggestion, they spent most of that evening dressing up the table on the floor above in fancy cloth and candles, laid their dried food out on plates like they _were_ nobility, and then had it with the wine (Corvo did, anyway), using the nicest gold cutlery that Garrett had picked up during his past activities in the City. Corvo still insisted that Garrett was a magpie in disguise, referencing the huge number of forks he kept in his home, and Garrett waved it off, looking disgruntled, ignoring the pile of treasures on the lower floor.

Garrett finished about a quarter of his food with plenty of encouragement from Corvo. Then he sat back and shook his head. Corvo sighed inwardly, fretting still about the situation. _He had to do something._

Garrett’s nightmares still did not go away, but for when he did wake, they sorted out a protocol between them to ensure he knew he was safe as quickly as possible and didn’t hurt himself or Corvo in the process. It became a routine - one which Garrett appeared to appreciate, although he’d never tell Corvo that.

The day after, Corvo looked up from the book he’d picked up from somewhere in Garrett’s room and announced he needed a shave and offered to do it for him. Garrett immediately shook him off and declined, taking a step back and shaking his head violently. 

“No.” The rejection was plain.

Corvo tilted his head, the rejection puzzling him. “Why? You clearly need it. Doesn't it bother you?”

“You think I’m going to sit down and just... let you hold a razor to my throat?”

Ah. Now he put it like that, it made perfect sense; it wasn’t something that Corvo had considered. Being so assured in his own strength and mobility, that had never been a concern for him. “So how are you going to shave?”

Garrett shrugged noncommittally, “I don’t know.” 

The fact of the matter didn’t really seem to bother him - at all - anyway, but whether that was another front to hide his true feelings was another question for another day. Corvo just nodded and went back to reading his book at the foot of the bed.

In fact, Garrett did attempt to shave that evening, while Corvo was asleep on the floor below. He came back to bed huffily two hours later with a patchy mess for a face and too many raw nicks along his jawline for Corvo to take seriously. He belly-laughed at the sight of the tiny thief with a messy attempt at kohl underneath his eyes (which he guessed was Garrett’s attempt at retrieving his old identity but _Outsider’s balls_ if it didn’t make him laugh) and a flower patch fuzz for a beard, uneven and messy. Garrett just glared at him, turned on his heel and flounced off back upstairs, grumbling to himself under his breath.

Corvo went back upstairs to retrieve him three hours later and found him slumped over the desk, snoring soundly. He was hesitant to wake the thief up; he looked like he was sleeping so peacefully for once, his lips curled upwards into something that looked like a smile, fingers twitching slightly, and he didn’t want to disturb it, but decided it would be kinder to make sure Garrett was comfortable. He didn’t want to think about where or how, or in what situations Garrett had slept during his career, so he scooped him up into his arms again and carried him downstairs. Garrett mumbled something underneath his breath and clutched at Corvo’s coat sleeves, but mercifully did not wake. 

Corvo was worried about how thin Garrett felt in his arms, how light he was to pick up. A fully-grown man should not have been as easy as Garrett to lift and carry, but Corvo was still struggling to convince him to eat anything without having to watch him very closely. He wasn’t sure what Garrett really enjoyed eating but he was fairly sure that it wasn’t just bits of dry bread and cured meat. At the very best, that sort of diet would get boring after a few days. At the worst, it was lacking in any modicum of nutrition. _Nobody_ enjoyed eating dried bread exclusively, and Garrett was no exception to the rule.

He left Garrett sleeping on the bed by himself, tucking him in tightly, swaddling his sleeping body in sheets and pillows, and then went to pull on his boots. It wasn’t like Corvo was doing anything the next day so he knew he’d be able to afford one night of lost sleep (as if he hadn’t been doing it continuously for the past two weeks), would be able to sleep when he got back. That’s what they seemed to do these days anyway: sleep at weird times and eat at weird times.

He threw some more fuel into the brazier as he passed it, ensuring there was going to be enough to keep blazing through the night and keep Garrett warm. He took a moment to pull on his coat, fastened it tightly to protect against the cold wind outside, and stopped. There was a note on the desk on the table at the other end of the room, the one where Garrett had been sat that evening. He hadn’t noticed it before.

Corvo walked over to the table and picked it up, poring over the contents. He had watched Garrett checking his blueprints and making notes many times, so he guessed that, of all things, made sense. It was a list of materials, mostly leather, although there were other items too: eyelets, buckles, laces, straps. Corvo looked over at the workshop on the other side of the room, which shelved his bow, quiver, and blackjack. _Of course._ Why hadn’t he thought of this? Garrett had indeed lost most of his gear to the furnace underneath the chapel, and it made sense that he wanted to rebuild. Corvo looked over the balcony and at Garrett’s foot which had freed itself from the confines of the blanket and was sticking out, pale and ghostly. He wasn’t able to work until he managed to cobble some leathers together, and he wasn’t able even to do that unless he had something to hide himself with, a harness for safety, armour for accidents, a hood for anonymity. It was an extreme risk to go out on a job without the proper equipment, Corvo knew it, but surely Garrett knew it better. He hadn’t been _planning_ on taking that risk, had he?

Corvo shook the thought from his mind. Looked over the blueprints for the leathers and made a few additional notes on the list he had picked up from the table. There was, of course, the chance that he would get it wrong, but it was worth a try, even if it was just to make Garrett happy. If it was going to make his life easier, Corvo was all for it.

It was worth the risk, he thought. He pocketed the note, pulled on his coat and then left via the window, traversing down the side of the clocktower without problem, his mind occupied, thinking of how he was going to find the materials and what sort of food he was going to bring back. It was going to be a challenge.

The plan was to go out, raid as many kitchens, pantries, and houses as he could find for as many different types of food as possible, and bring them back. He knew there must be something out there that Garrett would want to eat, that would make the process a bit easier for him, and in addition he would find himself something decent along the way. Whatever Garrett didn’t eat, Corvo would. He wasn’t picky in any respect, and he suspected the thief was cautious about what food he ate. He wondered briefly what sort of things Garrett ate given the chance. Salty food? Meat? Did he have a sweet tooth?

He combed through various houses looking for different things, picking up bits and pieces here and there, sneaking into kitchens and cellars, rummaging through cupboards and pantries. Auldale, he found, stocked the best kinds of food but the other districts weren’t too poor for pickings. Most of the workshops were housed in Stonemarket and the South Quarter, so Corvo finished up scrounging for food and made his way back out.

Thieving was not something he had ever really done in its purest form. It was one thing to kill the owner of a house and then steal all his stuff, eat all his food, and pocket all his valuables; that was easy. Once the owner was dead, there was little to no concern of being caught, barring any serious accidents or incidents such as a poor stab job or an unexpected guest, but he’d never really had to worry about that. He knew the guards from Dunwall like the back of his hand, knew their equipment and their capabilities, but the City was another matter entirely. He still knew _nothing_ about this area, and wasn’t inclined to test his limits in an unfamiliar space. On top of that, killing Cityzens or Watchmen was a bad idea to say the very least. He had attracted _entirely too much_ attention in the last few days through what had happened, there were still Watchmen out in threes on the beat, undoubtedly investigations still going on in force. To kill a man would be suicide. But that made the whole thing that much harder.

He wasn’t a small man either. His boots were heavy. Garrett had - used to have - specialised equipment for this, clothing and protective armour designed to make as little noise as possible. He had been doing it his whole life. Corvo? Not so much. His feet were too loud. He was clumsy; dropped things on the floor, tripped over his own feet, knocked things over when he turned around from time to time. He wondered how many accidents Garrett had over the years. Wondered if, at any point, he had been as clumsy as Corvo was. Well… it wasn’t so much that he was clumsy. Blinking around took practice, especially in tight situations, he was used to climbing on rooftops, dropping from ledges and simultaneously lodging his blade in his victim’s throats while netting a half-decent landing. Those were entirely different sets of skills. Out in the open, in Dunwall, nobody would hear a man running across a rooftop, and if they did then they would at the very least assume it was background noise or rats, but here, in a quiet house in the dead of night, things were very different.

It didn’t matter. That section of the planned journey was done. Corvo wasn’t sure if the workshops on the other side of the City would be any different but he hoped it would go as well as his foray into Auldale. He crept along the rooftops aiming for the bridge, watching the houses below him. They were nice, much nicer than the buildings in Stonemarket, some with lit windows, some with fancy brickwork. One house had a lot of candles lit around the front door. What happened there, Corvo thought, was a complete mystery. He soldiered on.

Crossing Auldale’s great bridge, he made his way to Stonemarket, back towards the clocktower, and then looped his way up in the direction of Cinderfall. Garrett had informed him that there were shops here that sold various different types of equipment: tools, boots, clothing, jewellery, anything else that could be needed to live life or run a business here. And among those treasures, Corvo knew he’d be able to find what he needed.

It took some work, but eventually he found the bolts of leather, ranging from aniline to soft through to rough, all black as night, as dark as shadow. Eyelets in another shop. Buckles in another. He looked through racks and racks of products, trying his best to keep an eye on the light level outside, fearing being caught in this place, fearing the wrath of the Watch. Canvas he found in yet another shop; a tailor’s, and laces were in a nearby cobbler’s. Rope was surprisingly more difficult to find, but he would be able to sort them out another day, he figured. Garrett was clearly in no shape to be building this piece of art, no matter how determined he was, or how much he wanted to get out of his clocktower, none of it mattered, and Corvo had neither the ingenuity nor the knowhow to craft such a piece. He had the time to find more materials for Garrett. A large, black, striped fold of cotton found its way into his bag as he turned and left. If there was anything that Garrett was capable of making right now, Corvo thought, it would be his scarf. And even that was a very large stretch.

Another thought crossed his mind as he left through the window and made his way back into the cold night air, onto the rooftops. Garrett still needed his stitches taking out. He wasn’t sure if the doctor had given Basso any instructions on when to have them removed, but that piece of information was closed off to him now anyway. He decided to ask Garrett when he got back, and the thief woke up. The very thought of it sent shivers of anxiety writhing into his stomach.

Turning back on himself and returning back to the clocktower, Corvo had a sudden revelation. He knew little about the City so far, yet he did know of one or two of their customs. They celebrated the Summersday Festival on the highest day of summer, and the Winter Feast Festival on the darkest day of winter. It was approaching the latter. The days had been becoming very short indeed, the weather bitterly cold. Snow had been falling in fits and starts. The fetid puddles on the ground froze and the associated smells dissipated. People in Auldale had clearly been decorating their homes, after all, festivals were for the rich. It was the same in Dunwall, it was the same everywhere else. The rich who were able to celebrate did so with joy, hosted parties and feasts and masquerades, while the poor froze to death and starved; Jessamine had always been so upset at that. Corvo didn’t blame her. 

Garrett, inevitably, saw this as a free-for-all. Drunk men and their valuables were easily parted. But this year, he wasn’t going to be able to take part in these festivities as he usually did, he was going to be stuck inside, recovering. Another thing the Whalers had taken from him.

Corvo made headway, clearing his way through the rising smoke from the chimneys below. The clocktower shone in the distance like a beacon, beckoned him, the face a reflection of the full moon about to dip below the horizon. The furthest reaches of the City were illuminated in the pale blue strands of dawn, outlined in silver. Up close, it was not a pretty place, but just like everywhere else it was magnificent at a distance.

Corvo was amazed that, out of all the improvements Garrett must have made to his clocktower, he had not once introduced a pulley system to get himself and other materials or supplies up or down the tower. It would make thing so much easier, he thought, and if he was able to design and build such a complex piece of machinery as his compound bow, and keep the machinery in the clocktower running, he was likely able to build a pulley. Maybe he hadn’t had time yet. Maybe it was simply too big or dangerous a task to be building things up there, in full view of the Stonemarket plaza, and more. Corvo knew just as well as anyone else here that Garrett was a wanted man. To be attracting attention by adding things to the outside of the tower was indeed a folly. But what about inside?

It wasn’t Corvo’s decision to make. It was Garrett’s home. Garrett’s right to have things exactly as he wanted them, no more and no less.

Garrett was awake when Corvo climbed in through the window. Looked drained, but was obviously trying to hide it. He nodded at Corvo as he came back down the stairs after dropping the loot bag by the bookcase just to the right of the window. 

“How are you doing?” Corvo asked as he pulled off his coat and draped it over a nearby chair, coming to sit down on the edge of the bed, “Very early to be up. Everything alright?”

“I’m fine,” Garrett said, although his eyes said otherwise, “It’s getting light.”

Corvo could tell without Garrett saying that he’d had another bad night but didn’t mention it directly, instead opting to sit in bed with him, to turn him around slightly and rub calming circles into his back. Garrett flinched at first, but then settled into his hands, the muscles in his back visibly relaxing, a very faint shiver distinct under the shirt.

“What was it this time? The usual?”

Garrett nodded, stayed silent and stared off into the distance, leaning back into Corvo’s hands. There wasn’t really anything to say. Corvo hadn’t been there for him. He wondered if Garrett held it against him, thought less of him for it. Wondered if Garrett had been suffering alone. He wasn’t the sort of man to make a fuss of anything, and it was a potential cause of cracking in their tenuous relationship, but that was the choice he had made when he went out. He just hoped the benefits would pay off.

“I’ve been out,” Corvo said after a while, as if Garrett wasn’t already _entirely_ aware of that fact, “I brought you something.”

Garrett tilted his head and hummed, but opted not to turn around. His tone of voice said a lot. “You didn’t have to.”

Corvo wasn’t sure but if he was going to pitch a guess then it would be that Garrett wasn’t usually one to receive gifts from other people, judging by his reaction. “I brought you something nice to eat. And other things.”

“Oh?”

Corvo continued to rub Garrett’s back for a moment and then stood up, seeing Garrett try to correct the pitch it had thrown him into out of the corner of his eye. He retrieved the bag of loot from upstairs and brought it all down, first helping Garrett to turn and sit with his back against the pillows, and then pulling the treasures out one by one and laying them on the bed.

Fresh meat wrapped in several clean cloth folds. Carrots and several pods of fresh peas. Apples and pears. Freshly baked bread and ceramic containers of jam and butter. Chocolate cake wrapped in another piece of cloth, slightly squashed. A jar of boiled sweets. 

Garrett’s eyes widened slightly and he shuffled where he sat. “I’m surprised you managed to find this. Chocolate cake, even. I’m impressed.”

Corvo shrugged and smiled weakly, “Auldale.”

Garrett nodded knowingly and continued to stare at the food, but whether the expression on Garrett’s face was uncomfortable or something else was entirely up for interpretation. A gnawing anxiety crawled in the pit of Corvo’s stomach. If Garrett wouldn’t find this helpful at all then he wasn’t sure what his next port of call would be, and inevitably he would have to find something to help. Something better.

“You want to see what else I brought?” Corvo changed the topic quickly and temporarily so Garrett would have time to process, and reached back into the bag and pulled out the rolls of leather he’d taken from the workshops earlier that morning.

Leaning forward as much as he was able to, Garrett took a closer look.Corvo held the fabric out for him to touch, and Garrett ran his thumb over the material, a soft dark leather. He stroked it for a couple of minutes as if handling a small animal, a faint twitch appearing in the corner of his mouth, and looked up into Corvo’s eyes.

“This is for me?”

Corvo nodded and shrugged, “Yeah. It’s yours. I hope it’s the right stuff but if it’s not then tell me and I can-”

“ _Thank you._ ” Garrett said firmly. There was a faint wobble in his voice, although Corvo might have been imagining it, Garrett wasn’t the sort of person he’d expected to be showering him in praise.

“It’s fine, I--”

“No, really,” Garrett’s voice was stronger this time, his head tilted forwards, “ _Thank you, Corvo._ ”

Corvo was slightly taken aback. He hadn’t really expected Garrett to take any notice, but as usual, this man was full of surprises, and the forceful tone of voice had him confused for what it was, “I brought you some canvas and cotton too. If you want any help building anything then please let me know, but I don’t supposed I’d be much help. You’re the one who knows about this, not me.”

Garrett nodded in response and dropped his gaze, continuing to stroke the cloth over with which fingers he could spare, suddenly very quiet. His voice was barely more than a whisper, “You didn’t have to.”

“I _know_ I didn’t,” Corvo said, standing up, smiling, and then gathering the materials back into the bag, “But you needed it. It’s your stuff. You should be allowed to re-make it.” 

He held out his hand for Garrett to pass him the section of leather that he was holding as tightly as he could, but Garrett withdrew momentarily, holding the material closer to his chest, a fear in his eyes, like Corvo was going to take it off him and burn it.

“Come on, I’ll just fold it up and store it upstairs. You can’t sit there with it held to your chest all day. If you want, you can come with and watch,” There were a few moments as Garrett stared up at Corvo, still stroking the cloth gently, and then relented, reluctantly handing it back over to Corvo, who packed it back into the bag. “Where do you want me to put it?”

“The workshop should do,” Garrett said, apparently still wishing he was holding the bolt of leather in his hands, or actively crafting it into something brilliant, “Just leave it on the bench.”

Corvo nodded and carefully slotted the rest of the material back into the bag, folded it at the top, and then tucked it underneath his arm. “Do you want to come?”

“Yes.”

“Alright,” Corvo said, putting the bag back down at the end of the bed and, ensuring Garrett didn’t disturb the food he had brought, helped him get back up. There wasn’t really any need at this point, he had been healing so well, but he still groaned when he swung his legs over the edge of the bed which tugged on Corvo’s heart strings, so Corvo helped him up anyway. The stairs were another longstanding challenge too but Garrett had been finding ways of getting himself upstairs. He still gripped Corvo’s arm.

“Go and sit down at the table,” Corvo said as he dropped the bag of materials on the workshop bench and turned on his heel, “Go and make yourself comfy.”

Garrett shot him a look that smacked of concern but nodded and did as he was asked anyway, drawing the chair out with a _scrape_ and a wince and then sat down, waiting for Corvo to come back to him. Watching him as he was descending the stairwell, Corvo caught himself smiling at Garrett from across the room.

It was entirely reasonable. He wanted Garrett to be able to feel safe and comfortable in his own home. But he looked so cute sat at the table by himself; small and tired. He just hoped that bringing him some more interesting food would make him more likely to eat something.

He brought the food up to Garrett, placed them down on the table still contained in their cloth wrappings, and sat down directly opposite him, leaning forwards slightly in his chair, the sound of the brazier flickering behind them all too apparent in the sudden silence.

“Garrett. These are yours. I picked them up earlier because I realised that eating bread and packaged meat isn’t going to be the most pleasant experience in the world. You can choose to eat it or not but the option is there and--”

Garrett cut him off. The same expression that he wore earlier when Corvo gave him the bolts of leather was back.

“What is this?”

Corvo tilted his head, confused by the question. “It’s food. Real food.”

Shaking his head and shuffling in his seat to get a better look, Garrett pressed him again, “Yes, I know. But why? Why are you doing this?”

Corvo blinked. “Because I want to help you and I’m worried about you.”

Surely it couldn’t be that Garrett was _still_ worried that Corvo was going to poison him? Surely Corvo had more than proven that he was reliable and trustworthy and an _ally_. Surely Garrett wasn’t still terrified for his life whenever Corvo decided to move around or turn in bed or feed him?

Garrett just narrowed his eyes at him.

“I want to help Garrett, but I’m not going to force you to do anything. Look,” he reached over and broke off a chunk of cake and ate it, the flavour sending tingles up his spine from two weeks of nothing but City food, a bid to show Garrett that it was safe to eat, “It’s fine. You’re safe. But if you don’t want to eat it then you don’t have to.”

There were several moments of silence. If this didn’t work, then Corvo wasn’t sure what else would. He had to get Garrett to start eating more as soon as possible, but couldn’t think of any other way. Garrett just looked at him with a blank expression, the dark eyes hollow, the purple rings underneath it betraying extreme exhaustion.

He wasn’t going to take it.

He was just going to starve.

Garrett continued looking at the food in front of him, raking his eyes back and forth distractedly, one fingers tapping insistently on the table in an anxious rhythm. Rocking back and forth slightly, but only so much that Corvo was able to make it out if he concentrated on his figure.

Maybe he just felt uncomfortable at being watched?

“Alright. I’ll leave if you want” Corvo said, his voice betraying some of the disappointment that came with it, “I’m sure you don’t need me lecturing you.” He scraped the chair back, and walked towards Garrett in a split-second decision, reaching out so that his hand was clearly visible and touching him on the shoulder before walking around behind him and resting his chin on Garrett’s head. Garrett flinched nonetheless.

Corvo took a moment to bury his face in Garrett’s hair, to squeeze his shoulders with a firm hand and to risk planting another kiss on the very top of his head because _fuck if Garrett shouldn’t feel loved and wanted in his own home._ He took a moment to breathe in his scent and then made to leave.

A small movement caught his eye. Garrett reaching for the cake and then pulling it slowly across the table, careful not to upset it or damage it (like it could be any more damaged and battered than it already was) and then stared down at it intently, like he was trying to figure out some very complicated puzzle. Corvo stopped.

“Do you want some tea?”

Garrett looked up suddenly, his eyes wide from the interruption like he had been buried in his own little world, and then slowly nodded. The tips of his good fingers were still clenched around the piece of cloth lying underneath the cake, but had stopped moving, freezing him in a startled pose, like a rabbit caught in a snare. Corvo quickly averted his eyes and walked off behind Garrett again, sorting out the water, cups and tea leaves. He doubted that they had been washed since they last had tea, but it bothered him none. He gave them a rinse and started boiling the water.

He could hear nothing from where Garrett was sat. He had his back to Corvo, so he took the opportunity to lean back against the counter while the water boiled and observe the thief, making careful notes on his behaviour. He appeared to be probing the cake carefully, looking at it from different directions, turning the piece of cloth so the different angles caught the light in the tower and gave off any indications of dubious substances. It was one thing for Corvo to bring back a closed package of dried food, but entirely another to provide him with something that wasn’t.

A few minutes passed while Corvo continued to watch Garrett, ready to spring back round if Garrett also took a peek at what he was doing, but no such thing came. He lifted it to smell it, then put it back down. Whatever he had smelled must have been good enough for him, because then he picked it up and turned it over and over in his fingers, looking at the sides and then the bottom. Broke a piece off and inspected it.

Corvo knew it would be a folly to say anything at this moment so he simply turned back around and poured the tea, straining the water through the leaves, careful not to spill any over the sides.

By the time he got back, the piece that Garrett had been probing was gone. It was small, but it was also gone, and he had a satisfied half-smile on his face.

Baby steps. It was better than nothing. Corvo breathed a sigh of relief but kept it carefully hidden, opting instead to put Garrett’s cup down on the table and then returning to his full view, leaning on the back of his own chair and swirling the cup in his hands.

“Would you like me to go back downstairs?”

Corvo knew some people felt uncomfortable in the presence of other people while eating, but he couldn’t help but wonder if Garrett felt he might be keeping watch. The thief shook his head and broke off another chunk of cake, once again rotating it gently between his figures so as not to disfigure it, and then carefully took a bite.

Corvo wouldn’t possibly have asked for anything more. The warm heat of contentedness rose up from the pit of his stomach and into his throat and he smiled. “Is it good?”

“Yes,” Garrett said, continuing to break off chunks, “It is. It’s nice,” he picked up the tea seemingly without thinking and drank. “I like this.”

Corvo tried to hide his smile and sat back down at the table, leaning back so as not to seem too eager or imposing and let his eyes rove across the room. Watched the machinery to his right quietly rotating and clunking in a great big wooden-rope dance. Garrett must have put some serious work into getting it going again. The feeling of relief was making him want to cry there and then.

Garrett slowly picked off what was left of the chocolate cake in front of him and started on the meat, despite the fact that it was now cold, his appetite now whetted. Corvo finished his tea as Garrett slowly worked at it to the bone and then sucked the flavour out of those too, Corvo trying to make idle conversation but not once getting very far with it. Garrett was completely occupied.

Not wanting to seem like he was watching Garrett too intently, Corvo put his cup down and picked up a book from the shelf above his work bench and flicked through it idly, noting that it wasn’t of much interest to him, just a textbook on mechanics, but still bit the tip of his thumb in concentration as he studied the diagrams and tried to make some ounce of sense from it but failed. Not only did it not make any sense to him logically, nor interest him, but his vision had been blurring recently, he was soon going to need spectacles to read anything that was anywhere near the size of typeface in this book.

When he looked up, Garrett had finished off the peas and carrots too and had moved onto the fruit. It was here that Corvo decided to take action.

“You’re going to make yourself sick if you keep eating it that quickly.”

Garrett ignored him and continued to attack his second apple.

“Come on. Save some for later. I can go get more but not until nightfall. Let’s get you back to bed.” He stood up again and walked behind Garrett again, touching him on the shoulder as he went so he wouldn’t flinch, and then gently guided his hands underneath Garrett’s armpits and _lifted_ , pulling him into a standing position, and helped him shuffle back towards the stairs, although the sad, defeated whining noise in the back of Garrett’s throat tugged on Corvo’s heart strings. He didn’t relent. This was all going to have been pointless if Garrett just threw it all back up again.

He helped Garrett make his way back down the stairs and settled him back on the bed, pulling the covers tightly around him and sitting by his side. Garrett was now significantly calmer than he had been in some time, his cheeks as flushed as was possible for Garrett and his head resting back against the wall, languidly tracing circles with one of his good fingers on the bed sheets. He sighed contentedly. Smiled. 

The smile only lasted so long. It turned into a pained grimace after a few moments and he shuffled in pain. Maybe Corvo was imagining it, but it was almost like Garrett was trying to hide something from him. Was he actually going to vomit?

“Are you alright?” Corvo asked Garrett, unsure of whether he should fetch a bowl or something, “Do you need anything?”

Garrett continued to shift uncomfortably where he sat. It was _painfully obvious_ to Corvo when Garrett was in discomfort but he seemed to have this _thing_ against ever admitting there was a problem.

Tugging on his shirt, Garrett continued to think, seemingly steeling himself for telling Corvo about what was bothering him. It took maybe five minutes. Corvo didn’t relent, but held Garrett’s hands in his own.

“My stitches are pulling. I don’t know what to do.”

Ah. There it was. Corvo would have brought it up himself if he’d known how to.

“Garrett, I can’t carry you down the side of that clocktower again. I can give it a go if you like but I can’t promise anything.”

Garrett pouted slightly, subconsciously and protectively crossing his good arm across his stomach, “If you’re able to do the actual stitching then you’re good enough to take them out.”

There was a hint of bitterness in his voice, which took Corvo aback slightly. Was he still upset about what had happened on that afternoon? They both knew that there wasn’t anything else that Corvo could have done; he did his best and that’s all anyone could have asked for. Still, he didn’t suppose he could blame Garrett really. It did look exceedingly painful.

“Alright. Do you have materials? Tweezers, clippers, that kind of thing?”

“In the same place they were before.”

Corvo nodded and returned to the cupboard, collected what he needed and took a roll of bandages too, just in case. Just in case things went wrong. If the gods had any sort of mercy, everything would be alright, but _just_ on the off-chance…

Garrett had been struggling to remove his shirt in the meantime. With his fingers still splinted and his arms still wrapped in a sling and immobilised, it seemed like a near-impossibility. Corvo gave a word of warning as he returned, cautioning the thief against struggling and aggravating his injuries any more, and then took the shirt in his own hands, gently helping Garrett wriggle out of it, placing it off at the foot of the bed in a great heap. This shirt should have been washed days ago, but they had been too preoccupied to do so. He made a mental note to sort out some washing as soon as he was done taking Garrett’s sutures out, and went to wash his hands.

It was quick job. Garrett didn’t really appear to be in any pain at all during the procedure, and Corvo’s hands didn’t shake nearly as much as they had while he’d been putting in the stitches earlier. A swift _tug_ and _snip_ was all it took, and the wounds held, mercifully. Garrett had been right about the pulling; they had healed enough that it _would_ hurt to keep them in any longer; it was time for them to come out anyway. He wondered briefly what the illicit doctor would have done that he couldn’t regarding this. Wondered if there was something he should be giving Garrett, or any checks further than those for infection or further injury, but everything seemed alright, and Garrett only seemed perkier for it. He finished up removing the stitches and put the last of the used material in the bowl, aiming to go and throw them out as he went to wash some of the clothing.

“Better?” he asked Garrett as he collected up the last of the instruments and Garrett turned himself back onto his back with some difficulty.

He nodded and made his best approximation of a smile, “Yes. Much. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” 

He left Garrett sitting in bed by himself as he went upstairs, disinfected the tools and ran a basin of water for the washing. It was cold, but surely hot water was a luxury in a place like this. Garrett, the genius engineer that he clearly was, had apparently designed and built some kind of contraption for catching and filtering rainwater - clearly a necessity as a place like this would never have been built with plumbing in mind - and had somehow not frozen in the throes of winter. Corvo would have to spend a lot of time and energy heating the water up as he did with the tea, so opted not to, leaving the bowl to settle to room temperature before attacking the shirt with a scrubbing brush. By the time he was done, the water was saturated with blood. He recoiled in shame. How had he allowed it to get this far?

He crossed to the other side of the balcony and looked over, hoping to catch a glimpse of Garrett on the floor below, ensuring that he was still safe and well. He was surprised to find Garrett staring back up at him, who smiled and waved.

 _Smiling_ in earnest was not something he had ever really expected of Garrett when he first met him, and it still wasn’t the exception, all this time later. Corvo smiled and waved back, hung the shirt over the back of a chair near the brazier, and returned downstairs. Climbed into bed with Garrett again, huddled up. Garrett was shivering.

It _was_ still bitterly cold outside, and only marginally better in the clocktower. The leathers had clearly been giving Garrett significant protection from the elements, and now he didn’t even have those.

An idea sprang to Corvo’s mind. He gently eased Garrett off himself and stood up, took his own shirt off. It was something that Corvo would be able to deal with easily: he was bigger and stronger than Garrett, not severely injured save for the bolt injuries that had been speedily healing (another benefit of bearing the Outsider’s mark), muscle-bound. Generally more insulated. Garrett had visible ribs and significant physical trauma. He clearly needed it more than Corvo.

Garrett protested only slightly as Corvo shuffled the shirt over his shoulders and buttoned it so that it covered Garrett completely. It dwarfed him completely, he looked tiny. When he lifted his good arm to take a look, the sleeve end draped over the hand. Garrett folded it back so his hands were covered and looked back at Corvo with wide eyes.

“It’s very big.”

“You don’t mind, do you?”

Garrett shook his head, “No. It’s fine. It works.”

“At least you’re covered now, right?”

Corvo got back into bed with Garrett, pulled the sheets up as far as they would go, over Garrett too so they were both covered and protected from the draft coming up from the bowels of the clocktower. The perpetual mist that seemed to be permanently settled in the shaft of the tower wasn’t even disturbed by the breeze. The gears rotated slowly above it all. Garrett said he had got all of this working by himself; how he had done that was anyone’s guess. It was so huge. So cold. There was so much capacity for things to go wrong.

Corvo had visible goosebumps. Even though he wouldn’t admit it, he was still freezing. Garrett tugged on his shoulder and covered both of them in the blanket, hoping that it would be easier for them both to warm up when insulated from the cold clocktower. It did help, in fact. Under the covers it was so much warmer. Corvo reached out almost by instinct and held Garrett to his chest before remembering.

“Is it okay if I…?”

There were a few seconds as Garrett appeared to deliberate on his answer. Then he nodded. “Yes. It’s fine.”

The reply was terse but it was enough for Corvo. The thief was still ice-cold from having his stitches removed, so Corvo wrapped his arms around his upper back-to-neck area and held him close to his chest. He didn’t even struggle, and only moved to pick Corvo’s hand up and look at it awkwardly.

“Your heart beats in time with that tattoo.”

“Does it? I’ve never noticed.”

Garrett studied it for some more time before replying. “Yes. It’s there.”

They laid in silence for what felt like hours. Corvo helped Garrett move if and when he became uncomfortable in any one position, gently turning him onto his side, then onto his back, then back onto his side. Helped him lie on his front when that got uncomfortable too, head resting on Corvo’s chest. 

Corvo stroked his back reassuringly. Slowly and all-too-early the light from the window that was filtering down between the floorboards turned golden, and then violet. He kissed the top of Garrett’s head when the first stars appeared in the sky and the silver strands of moonlight graced the rafters far up above them.

“Do you mind that?”

Garrett started. He hadn’t been asleep but hadn’t quite been awake either. Had been hovering in that weird in-between twilight world of _not there_. Clearly on the cusp of dreams.

“Mind what?”

Corvo dared to kiss the top of his head again. “That.”

Garrett shifted so as to look Corvo directly in the eyes. “If I didn’t want you to do something I’d tell you.”

“I’m not sure I expected anything less of you.”

“Don’t push your luck.” He settled back onto Corvo’s chest and traced what fingers he could in the hollows between his serratus muscles, just beneath his arms, “You may continue.”

Corvo nodded and continued, running his hands up and down Garrett’s back underneath the shirt, feeling in _too much fucking detail_ the ribs and vertebrae and shoulder blades, his skin papery dry. Garrett hummed into Corvo’s chest as he did so in what Corvo interpreted as a request for more. He understood - and obliged.

He buried his face deep in Garrett’s hair. Ran four fingers up to the nape and gained the response of a shiver. Played with the wispy bits of hair at the back of his neck and ran a finger around to his jawline. Stroked that too, patchy stubble and all.

Then he decided to take a chance. A very big chance.

He eased Garrett off his chest and back onto his side so they were facing each other, lying down, only inches apart. Corvo reached down to his side and continued to stroke the side of his stomach, palming the dip and curve between ribs and hip. “If you want me to stop, then please tell me to stop, or tap me twice on my hip or shoulder if you don’t feel you can speak. Understand? Can you do that now for me?”

Garrett narrowed his eyes and then slowly, surely, tapped Corvo twice on the hip. “I don’t know what you...” he trailed off as Corvo planted a delicate kiss on his forehead.

“You don’t know what I what?”

Taken aback, but not unpleasantly so, Garrett stared up at Corvo, “Nothing. It’s nothing.”

“Double-tap if you’re uncomfortable, remember? I won’t forgive myself if I don’t try, but I also won’t forgive myself if I go too far.”

“Alright,” Garrett said, preparing himself for whatever Corvo had planned, “Go on.”

Corvo cautiously took Garrett’s right hand in his left, and cupped the back of his head with the other, thumbing through the hair and providing support. Kissed his forehead again and then moved down his face slowly, lingering on both his cheeks and tracking his way down his nose. 

Garrett felt Corvo’s rough stubble on his face and grounded himself in it. Closed his eyes. Lost himself in the feeling of Corvo’s fingers on the back of his head. Had he ever been touched there in a non-threatening way before? Apparently not. Not in many, many years, at least, not that he could remember. He could feel the heat radiating off Corvo, who slowly removed his hand from the back of his head and moved to his chin. Tilted it upwards.

Carefully observing Garrett for any indication of discomfort or panic, Corvo moved in slowly, giving plenty of warning, making his intentions absolutely clear. He pressed his own lips to Garrett’s, and there was a moment of just _nothing_ before he opened up like a flower, melted into Corvo, relaxed considerably against the palm of his marked hand, which glowed under the covers. His mouth was cold against Corvo’s own, a lingering effect of the biting winter, so Corvo deepened it in an attempt to warm them both up. Helped him wriggle the shirt back off as he did so, running his hands lightly over Garrett’s shoulders and upper arms as he did so, enjoying the feeling a _bit too much_.

Garrett was clumsy. Clashed teeth once or twice. Corvo pulled back and looked him in the eye, stroking the side of his face. “Have you done this before?”

Garrett hesitated for a minute and then shook his head. “No. Never.”

No surprises there then. “Are you still comfortable?”

“Yes.”

“What do you do if you’re uncomfortable?”

Garrett rolled his eyes and nearly laughed. _Nearly._ “I’ll say so or tap you twice on the hip or shoulder.”

“I’m proud of you,” Corvo said, and then drew him in for another kiss, pressing himself deeper into it this time, waiting for an equal and opposite response from Garrett before proceeding, treading this ground oh-so-carefully. He _couldn’t_ afford to fuck this up. Not now. He _finally_ had Garrett within his grasp, and he wasn’t about to let him slip back out of it unless he needed to.

He removed his left hand from Garrett’s and rubbed circles into his upper back again, prompting Garrett to hum once again into his mouth, and then trailed it first up to his neck again and down his back, over his lower spine, just about to where it began to deviate back upwards to the curve of his ass and then rubbed circles there too, getting Garrett used to being touched there, feeling the ridge at the beginning of his tailbone. Garrett didn’t miss a beat, just continued kissing Corvo, pressing himself into his chest needily, hitching breaths the only indication that he was still present.

Corvo broke the kiss to look deeply into Garrett’s eyes and then moved down, directing his head with one index finger, kissing him down the side of his neck to the shoulder, and then crossed down across the front of his throat, planting a necklace of kisses in the hollows there in and amongst the small scars from years past, moving to the other side and then up to the shell of his ear, where he planted one last kiss and then licked it playfully, causing Garrett to startle and yelp.

Corvo took Garrett’s face in his hands, smiled playfully and watched him carefully, breathless, “Everything okay?”

“Yes. It’s all good.”

“Great,” he took the opportunity to lick the area just to the side of Garrett’s mouth again to something that _almost_ sounded like a moan, “Because I’m not done with you yet.”

He pulled Garrett up onto his chest again and propped himself up against the headboard because _cold be damned_ and went back to running his hands up and down Garrett’s flanks, edging his fingertips underneath the waistband of the shorts and running them along laterally from one hip to another, making close mental notes of where all the ridged and raised scars were, and then moved his hand back up to the small of his back before repeating.

Garrett seemed to be enjoying the touch. He was quivering underneath Corvo’s protective grip, eyes closed, bright red when Corvo pulled away and took a good look at him before moving back in. His pulse drummed underneath Corvo’s hands in a familiar way that was almost soothing and his breath came in heaving shudders. Even more so when Corvo took the leap and slid his hand underneath the waistband and settled a hand on his ass, where he palmed it, enjoying the curve in all its firmness, running his hand down the crease between ass and leg. Squeezed. 

Garrett jumped but instead of pulling away he moaned into Corvo’s mouth, his eyelashes fluttering on his cheek, and Corvo continued to feel him up, enjoying the sensation of Garrett’s spasms of pleasure on top of him, then waited a couple of minutes for the tension to abate. He pulled back. Gave the waistband of his shorts a quick tug.

“Shall we get these off, Magpie?”

“Magpie _is_ a new one,” Garrett rasped in response, still breathless, “But yes. Please.”

“A new one? You got people addressing you by nicknames on the regular?” Corvo teased, but quietened at the look Garrett shot him, disappeared beneath the covers, trailed kisses and very light nips from his collar bone, down his sternum, descending to the waistband of the shorts. He took one moment to look Garrett in the eyes before taking hold of his hips and helping him shift and wiggle until they passed the curve of his ass, passed his thighs, all the way down to his ankles where they were removed and carelessly discarded down the side of the bed, “Do you happen to have oil here?”

It took Garrett a moment to rouse himself from the apparent trance as Corvo coaxed his legs open and settled himself between them, but when he did, he looked down at Corvo and nodded. “Just under the bed. Want me to…?”

“No, I’ll get it when we’re ready if you don’t mind,” Corvo said, running his hands up and down Garrett’s stomach, enjoying the feeling of his toned muscles. He had been on what was _supposed_ to be bed rest recently, sure, so he had lost a lot of that tone recently, but _Outsider’s balls_ if he wasn’t still damn-near godly. He chanced another lick from the base of his shaft up towards his navel and Garrett shuddered, moaned, deliciously prone.

He had long been feeling the fire pooling in the bottom of his belly and between his legs now, could see that Garrett felt the same. He was rock hard. Corvo matched his partner, straining against his own trousers, almost painful.

He took Garrett in his mouth and there was a shocked gasp.

A moment of silence before Garrett stiffened, brew in a sharp breath and frantically started tapping him on the shoulder.

“Stop, stop, ah- _Corvo, please. Please._.”

Corvo withdrew instantly and shifted himself up onto his elbows and knees, taking stock of the situation and drawing in as close to Garrett as he dared without spooking him, “Are you alright?”

Garrett didn’t say anything; just shook his head frantically. Not tearful but _definitely_ not completely content either. He gripped Corvo’s shoulders with just a bit too much force, to the point of pain, and stared at him, wide-eyed.

“Come on, it’s alright. I’ve got you,” he laid back down in front of Garrett and held his vision, hooking his arms around his back and encasing him in protective warmth, “This alright? Do you want me to let you go?”

Garrett shook his head again _very stiffly_ and continued to hold onto his arms as if hanging onto a life raft, his mouth slightly agape in shock. Corvo took a second and a spare arm to pull the covers back around them, tucking it in behind Garrett as he held him close, “Deep breaths. You’re safe. Everything’s alright, just keep breathing.”

He felt the nod under his arms as Garrett slowly relaxed and Corvo prompted him to breathe in and then out with him, as he had always done when Garrett woke screaming and crying in the night. Muttered calming words into his ear, reassuring him that no harm would come to him again.

It was probably a lie, but it was what he needed right now. It had probably been far too early to start trying anything like that with Garrett, jumpy as he was in the first place, but Corvo didn’t beat himself up over it. It had been worth a shot. Garrett wasn’t in _such_ a poor state (at the moment, anyway), but it had clearly taken him by surprise and he simply hadn’t been ready. He stroked the back of his head again.

“Are you alright?”

The shock seemed to have worn off. Garrett looked back up at him and nodded slowly. “Do you want to keep…?”

Corvo shook his head and smiled, “Nah. We’re good.”

Garrett shrugged and the laid his head back down on Corvo’s chest, letting him rub his back again. “I’m sorry, I--”

Corvo cut him off with a sharp intake of breath, “I know you don’t believe me and I’m _fairly_ sure you don’t actually trust me, but your safety and comfort come first. Don’t worry about it.”

They watched the shafts of moonlight fall through the window and slide across the floor above them, listened to the birds in the rafters once again as Garrett finally settled into his arms and fell still and silent. Corvo just stared upwards, feeling his heartbeat patter against his own, waited until the thief fell asleep, and then followed him.


	22. The Act of Being Desired

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Corvo and Garrett take it one step further. Basso sends Garrett a message.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again warning for what is essentially smut for the first 5,000 words. If you want to skip that bit, the first break indicates the end of it.

Garrett had been laid in bed for several hours, staring up at the floorboards above him, thinking. Corvo had fallen asleep some time ago, was still laid stretched out next to him, breathing softly. He wasn’t sure what time it was - it was difficult to be sure even at the best of times, but sometimes minutes could feel like hours while laying awake contemplating life on his own. Similarly, if he did ever slip into sleep, hours could easily feel like minutes just as much. He hoped it was more of the latter than the former.

Eventually, he did get bored. The outside was cold, but Corvo was too warm for his tastes pressed up against his skin under the covers, his heat stifling in the night, sweaty and sticky against his shoulder. It went without saying that he had been developing significant feelings for Corvo lately, but that wasn’t any sort of substitute for comfort. He wondered briefly how he had allowed himself to get into this position, how he had gone from being a complete loner to becoming emotionally attached to this man; a man from foreign lands no less, a man who would soon be leaving for a place far, far away. Far away from him. Why get so attached when he knew he’d be gone so soon?

Had the cabin fever really been that bad? 

All he wanted to do was get outside. He knew his head would be so much clearer, less scrambled, less fuzzy, only if he could go and run across those City rooftops once again, to actually feel the cold night air passing through him and lighting his lungs on fire. There wasn’t even any point in thinking on it anymore - he was stuck until he could heal up enough to try to rebuild his gear and get down the side of his tower without risking his life. All that would take was time. He looked over at Corvo’s sleeping figure, observed as his chest rose and fell against the darkened violet of early dawn. Whatever this man said he felt was irrelevant in the long run. None of it mattered. Garrett needed only one thing, and it wasn’t him, regardless of how he made him feel under the covers, even if it was destined to go right at any point.

There was no question about it. He couldn’t think of any other way that Corvo could possibly help him, to his knowledge anyway. The lengths he had gone to to make Garrett happy were more than appreciated - the leathers Corvo had collected had sped up his return to work by a country mile and the food had made eating and regaining strength _infinitely more bearable_. Everything he had done seemed to have been geared to getting him back out of the clocktower and back into the places that he shouldn’t be - the dwellings, the manors, the factories and businesses in the City all begging to be broken in to. Whether Corvo realised it or not, all of it had been to advance Garrett’s progress towards independence. All of it except _that_. That which he had shared with Corvo above all others. It had felt good, it was not unpleasant by any stretch of the imagination save for the sudden feelings of discomfort that had caused him to ask Corvo to stop, but ultimately it was impractical.

Corvo was a different type of being to him. He was the sort of person that had sex for fun, or as a way to pass the time, or to form stronger emotional bonds with people. Garrett didn’t have such luxury, not normally anyway, never had done, never thought about it. What Corvo had done to him had been a revelation, but if it revealed anything of significance was anybody’s guess.

Garrett wasn’t sure if he wanted to know what came after what Corvo had done to him. There was definitely a pull, a curiosity of sorts, which he felt both in his head and between his legs. There was also the fear that he’d feel the need to back out again suddenly. The fear that it might not be of general benefit.

He shuffled back up in bed. He had grown so used to taking care around his stitches, that now they were gone, the freedom felt alien. There was no tugging or pulling. There was the risk that the wounds might become irritated in some way, although that might just have been him worrying unnecessarily, but it still lurked deep in his psyche, in the way he moved; inhibited and restricted and repressed like the Cityzens below him.

He wondered if Corvo came from a place like this. Stared at him from across the bed, making up his mind. He wasn’t like this on his jobs; made up his mind in less than half a second, took objects and information as they presented themselves. Why were people any different? He supposed, after a moment’s thought, that really, it was because those were time-limited and this wasn’t. He had the luxury of delaying and deliberating here. He also had the luxury of knowing, by now, that an incorrect move probably wouldn’t get him killed. Maybe he was just getting old. Maybe his instincts and gut reactions were slowing down.

Fuck it.

“Corvo,” he said, forcibly restraining himself from thinking about whether to do it or not any more and jiggling Corvo’s shoulder, “Wake up.”

Corvo looked _gorgeous_ now Garrett was able to take a closer look at him uninhibited by hormones; ruffled curly hair framed his face, all angular cheekbones and dark brows. Handsome, in one word. Probably took great care of his own appearance, for some reason or another, or at least was used to it. He cracked open his eyes slowly, with great care, took a quick look around and found Garrett sitting in front of him, leaning slightly. He sighed and rubbed his eyes after some scrabbling, and then bolted upright, concerned. His voice was hoarse, raspy, still thick of sleep.

“Y’ al’ight Garrett?”

“Yeah.” Garrett said, unsure of how to guide the conversation. There was an awkward moment of silence as Corvo looked into his eyes from his spot on the pillow.

“Did you have something to say? It’s still early. Might want to--”

“I want to talk to you. About yesterday.”

“Oh,” Corvo furrowed his brows, rubbed what sleep that still lingered from his eyes and then pulled himself up in bed, turned to face Garrett, his mouth set in a straight line, “What’s up?”

If Garrett had even an ounce of sense, he knew he’d just give up, tell Corvo that it was nothing; not to worry, that he’d been overreacting, that everything was fine. All that dumb shit. He’d have laid back down next to Corvo and cuddled into the warmth of his back and waited until tomorrow and pushed what happened to the back of his mind, to never speak of it again. _But it wasn’t like that._ He knew Corvo would worry. It wasn’t fair.

“I just want you to know that what you did for me - bringing me food and materials - that’s probably the nicest thing that anyone’s ever done for me.”

Corvo’s expression lightened considerably. He blew through his lips and let a whisper of a laugh escape from between his teeth. _His perfect fucking teeth_. “You woke me up in the middle of the night to tell me that?”

No.

No he hadn’t. But how would he even approach it? He hadn’t gone in with a plan, and now he’d royally screwed himself over. 

The dip just above Corvo’s collarbone was striking, outlined by moonlight, steeped in shadow. Several seconds passed before Garrett finally caught himself staring at it. He would have reached out and run his hand along it if he had less sense. Corvo appeared to have noticed; leant down to meet Garrett’s gaze and waved a hand before his eyes in amusement.

“Wake up, Garrett. Did you wake me up to say thanks for _actually_ feeding you, or did you want to say something else?”

Of course. It must have looked ridiculous from Corvo’s point of view, must have looked foolish, but he couldn’t find the words. Did he still want it? Was he sure?

“I--”

The cold silence was penetrating. 

“You… Can we…?”

_You what? Can we what? Can we fuck? Kiss? Have you in my arms and be in yours?_

Corvo pitched forward and planted a kiss on the end of Garrett’s nose, still slow, lethargic and clumsy from the lack of sleep. Not graceful, but it was the opening he needed. It was so _almost_ impossible to ask for things. Impossible. Garrett had _never, ever_ asked for _anything_ in his life, not like this. Whatever he could ever dream of wanting or needing was there, right outside his window, nestled in the City from the most obvious houses and businesses to obscure mansions on the outskirts of town, and if it was there, readily available to him, why would he ever need to ask for it? Why would he ever need to ask for anything? He wasn’t _practiced_ , he wasn’t… And if he didn’t even feel comfortable asking for food or help, why would he ever feel comfortable asking for this? Asking for Corvo’s love and attention?

The kiss was just the opening he needed. An explicit expression of permission and understanding. Corvo seemed to _get_ people better than Garrett did anyway - knew exactly what to say and when, recognised what Garrett was thinking without him having to be explicit about it. Maybe he’d just spent more time practicing - leaving the clocktower to have social rather than functional conversation with people was never something Garrett had made a habit of. He talked to Basso, yes. He talked to the Queen of Beggars sometimes. On very rare occasions he talked to clients about the minutiae of the work they required of him, but never anything frivolous. Corvo? Corvo was quiet and reserved, sure, but Garrett knew he’d talk his head off if he could. Corvo _knew_. 

And Garrett didn’t.

Not that it bothered _him_ , of course. It had never gotten in-between him and his shinies, so why would he care? 

Here he was, with this beautiful, kind, gorgeous man staring into his eyes from right in front of him. And _he_ was busy thinking of how to ask for it. 

_Fuck it._

_Fuck it all._

He leaned forward and made contact with Corvo’s lips, awkwardly placing a peck on them before withdrawing again, fidgeting distractedly, staring at a spot on the wall behind Corvo that _suddenly looked very interesting_ , anything to avoid the godawful, difficult eye contact that was sure to follow.

He was rewarded with a soft, warm palm cupped softly around his cheek and a calloused thumb dragged from his cheekbone down to his jawline, and then back up. The touch, although very, very light, made Garrett shiver and goosebumps erupted at the back of his neck, trailed down his spine and then spread out along his battered ribs where they rippled to a standstill. Corvo smiled. Garrett had evidently tried to mask his quivering but had done a poor job of it - something he had not quite mastered the art of, and he suspected he never would do. Come to think of it, were there any potential drawbacks to allowing Corvo to see his weaknesses, _just this once?_

“C’mon,” Corvo said, wriggling back down under the covers, guiding Garrett with him so they were both covered in and protected by the warmth of the sheets, “Warmer here. Don’t know how you live in this place, it’s so cold.”

He was right about that. The brazier was a huge help but only did so much for them, and not nearly as much as the blanket. Garrett settled underneath it with Corvo and huddled beneath his arms, burying his face into Corvo’s chest, breathing him in, letting the warmth that surrounded him before enfold him again, hold him close, feel the beating of his heart strong against his ear.

Safe.

He was safe with this man. He was sure of it. He was wanted, loved, but most importantly, safe.

Was that something he’d ever really felt before? At any given point, he could be reasonably sure that Basso wasn’t simply about to drop everything and lunge at him, but he’d never let him closer than arm’s length, _just in case_. Hell, even when he’d been suffering with that bad leg and the associated feverishness and confusion that came with it, he’d dared not let Basso close enough to know.

What had gone so wrong that after only three weeks he’d grown so close to Corvo? 

Or maybe, a rather more apt question was: what had gone so wrong that he’d failed to draw close enough to Basso after all the years of knowing him?

It was a mess. He was a mess. As messy as the kisses that Corvo now planted on Garrett’s lips with the back of his head firmly clasped in his right hand and his ass in the left, rolling him _gently, gently_ onto his chest, head propped up by the pillows, hitching him up slightly to gain a better grip. 

Maybe this was all a curiosity. It wasn’t something Garrett had considered before, but his interest had been piqued by Corvo’s own. Mere weeks ago, he wouldn’t have even considered giving Corvo the time of day unless he had to, and this had never even occurred to him. It would _never_ have even crossed his mind that here he’d be, not too far in the future, laying on Corvo’s chest, finding himself otherwise engaged by his roving hands and tongue, and the hotness that came from another living, breathing human underneath him.

Shivers once again erupted down his spine as Corvo’s hands unclenched from the back of his head, as if he’d reminded himself not to _grip_ Garrett as if he were to flee at any point and without warning, and began roaming around the nape of his neck, caressed the wisps of hair that had grown far too long but Garrett had found himself unable to cut it himself and too intimidated by the thought of anything sharp held by another person going anywhere near his head. Corvo appeared to like it anyway, and golden prickles of the non-sexual but still very physical pleasure that came from having it played with so lightly more than made up for it.

Corvo detached himself after a few minutes, once again holding the back of Garrett’s head and once again looked him square in the eyes with the same seriousness they had shown the day before, leaning on one elbow so Garrett was still close, so close he could feel Corvo’s breath on his cheek.

“Slight change of rules. I had a think about this overnight and decided to make it more specific, just in case. Tap me on the shoulder or hip if you want to stop again, and you’re free to say ‘stop’ if you want to, just like yesterday. But if you can’t manage that for whatever reason then ‘loot’ works too, got it?”

Garrett nodded. He understood. Although he didn’t suspect (hoped he didn’t, anyway) he would need to use it again, it was nice to know that Corvo was clearly receptive to his feelings on the matter. Surely it would be easy to feel intimidated by someone like Corvo, towering nearly a whole foot over Garrett, packed with muscle and probably much quicker to boot, so the idea that he was conscious of this fact was reassuring.

“Same goes for you,” Garrett said, half-joking, and watched Corvo’s face crease into a smile before he threw his head back and laughed out loud.

Garrett waited, straight-faced and stiff, for the bed to fall still as Corvo finished laughing and then let him pull him into another hug, pulling the sheets over their heads and reconnecting, brushing stray hairs out of the way with one free hand, the other hooked around his back again, rubbing circles into his lower spine, his lips warm and soft on Garrett’s own. Occasionally, he pulled back to leave stray kisses around his mouth, on the upward turn of his lip, one on the tip of his nose, several along his jawline. Garrett drank all of it in, all of the attention, all of the love, paid close attention to everything that was going on, responded in earnest but was rebuffed by Corvo’s own insistence. He was dominant. But for once, Garrett felt okay with that. Felt comfortable letting Corvo take charge. As if _he’d_ know what to do if he was allowed to lead the activity himself.

A gentle nip to the collarbone had him standing to attention and Corvo shifted position so he was hovering slightly above Garrett’s body as if encasing him in a safe tangle of damp limbs, one hand just above his shoulder and the other trailing up and down his torso, the touch lighter than a butterfly’s wing, pinpricks of pleasure exploding underneath it nonetheless. He felt Corvo’s index finger follow the trail of scars that littered his chest, gentle as anything, and instead of bringing pain, it brought nothing more than a pleasant tingle that sank deep into his belly and blossomed into deep desire. The stitches had been removed, yes, and Garrett knew that anything more than the most delicate disturbance would have him bleeding once again, but Corvo, he felt, could be permitted to trail the callused pads of his fingers along them. What had brought him abject misery and agony and terror had now become ripples that made him shiver under Corvo’s loving touch, the soft pink underneath his thumb tingling and sending jolts into the surrounding skin. 

Garrett reached up and ran his hand over Corvo’s hair, admired the shine in the moonlight, lit from behind like a halo, splashing over his own pale scars. He wondered, briefly, where they had come from too, if fighting was something Corvo did on the regular, if there was danger back wherever he had come from, if he had sustained these injuries protecting his loved ones from those who would do them harm. He lowered his hand from the dark hair and traced one particularly nasty-looking scar with his fingertip, wondering if it had come from a burning rod, or a brand, or something of the like. 

Noticing where his line of sight had drifted, Corvo stopped trailing the fresh scars on his chest with his right hand and raised it slowly, closing his hand around Garrett’s own as gently as he could to avoid disturbing the finger splints, and guided the hand back down to lie on top of his chest, near his collar bones, and then dipped his head down under the sheets. 

Obscured by the top of his head, Garrett was confused and unsure of what Corvo was going to do next, but the gentle brushing of soft, warm skin on skin around his scars and a mild tickling sensation gave away Corvo’s intentions. He squirmed.

“Are you okay?” Corvo asked, having noted the uncomfortable movements and raised his head again in concern, “Want me to stop?”

Garrett shook his head, “It’s fine. It tickles, that’s all.”

“Good.”

Drawing back in, Corvo brought his lips to Garrett’s again and tasted him, breathed in his scent, nipped at his bottom lip and pulled him in closer, closer, closer until their bodies were flush with each other and their heat mingled into something that resembled a safe, warm blanket, something stifling but also comforting, something that made him feel wanted and desired and secure. Corvo’s fingers were once again roaming, sliding up and down the side of Garrett’s chest, tracing the outline of his ribs and then followed the concavity of the side of his stomach, down the hollow where the top of his thigh met his hip. He shifted his weight back off Garrett again so only their lips made contact, Corvo’s left arm still resting underneath Garrett’s head, and continued to slide his hand down until Garrett jumped again in something that might have been surprise, or might have been arousal.

Maybe he wasn’t sure.

“I’m fine,” Garrett said in response to the predictable shift, as Corvo pulled himself away, “Keep going.”

There was no hesitation as Corvo pulled Garrett back in, one arm around the back of his neck, holding his head in the crook of his arm, kissing him hungrily, his hand circling the base of Garrett’s shaft. Garrett felt Corvo tense above him - and then pressed himself further into Garrett’s body, enclosing him tighter than before, and Garrett responded similarly, gripped his shoulder again with his one good hand, pressed which fingers he could into his muscles, felt resistance under the pads of his fingers and then ran them down his sweat-slick ribs towards his hips.

The air deadened noticeably as Corvo finally took Garrett in the palm of his hand and ran it _gently-gently_ up to the head and then back down the other side, waiting for Garrett’s needy whine - an indication of his approval - before wrapping his fingers firmly around his shaft and drawing upwards again, earning another gasp and a protracted sigh as Garrett moved with his hand in an attempt to draw out the pleasure and then pulled back as Corvo reached the top and thumbed the tip.

Garrett pawed clumsily at Corvo’s smallclothes in an obvious request to have them removed, and Corvo did so, breaking from their kiss only to struggle with them, pulled them off and discarded them with Garrett’s own shorts down the side of the bed, but in doing so lost his balance and fell, landing on his elbow at Garrett’s side, who burst into laughter at the less-than-graceful movement. He allowed himself half a second to look Corvo up and down before grasping at his thighs again.

“What?” Corvo asked, smiling playfully and pitching over Garrett again, planting both hands at either side of his head, clearly observing as Garrett’s eyes once again drifted down his chest, stomach and then further. Corvo leaned down between words and planted kisses on Garrett’s cheeks, nose, forehead and chin as he spoke, to the sound of more hysterical laughter, “You- looking- at- me?”

Garrett barely had the time to stop laughing and get out a nod before Corvo pulled him in and reached down again, grasping his cock and quickening the pace he had set before, to Garrett’s fervent appreciation. He reached up again and, hooking an arm around the back of Corvo’s neck, he reconnected for a moment, opening up to his warmth, before Corvo dipped his head and went back to kissing him down the side of his neck, nipping gently where his teeth could find scant purchase, licked a long stripe up from his collarbone to just below his ear to a violent shiver and a moan and the eruption of goosebumps all along his jaw and down to his shoulder.

Remembering what he had been asking Corvo for previously, Garrett freed his good hand from above the muscled shoulders and worked it down Corvo’s stomach, deliberately brushing the _very nice_ abs before Corvo, apparently realising what Garrett was intending on doing, caught his arm and sat up on his hind quarters above Garrett, one hand just below the elbow, the other grasping his wrist to immobilise it, dwarfing it with the size of his own hands, and left a trail of kisses from the crook of his arm all the way up to the palm of his hand, and then took his thumb and guided it to his mouth. Garrett gasped as Corvo made direct and deliberate eye contact, took it in his mouth and sucked, laving his tongue over the creases and scars and knuckles, then slowly removed it, finishing it off with a kiss to the nail before guiding his hand back downward and laying it to rest on his cock. Garrett was speechless. Damned if he could find the best words at any given moment on the best of days. Now? He had no chance.

Nevertheless, he grasped Corvo between the crook of his thumb and the palm of his hand with roughly the same force as Corvo had grasped him with, and attempted to stroke him in a similar way, driving his own hips up periodically as Corvo reached the sensitive head, but found plenty of difficulty in the action owing both to inexperience and lack of mobility in his hand. It was possible to undertake many activities while compromised just so, but this wasn’t one of them. Corvo himself, although he had hissed in pleasure when Garrett first took him in his hand, looked none too pleased at the outcome, although Garrett could tell he was trying his level best to hide it. He stopped suddenly and made eye contact with Garrett again. 

He changed tack abruptly and shuffled downwards, aligning Garrett’s hips with his own, guiding them with large strong hands between his own legs and lowered his pelvis so that they were touching. Almost. 

“How about this?”

Garrett barely had the time to expel a soft keen before, using the same hand, Corvo grasped both of their cocks and held them together, grinding down ever so slightly, rolling his hips in nothing more than small rotations, one hand on Garrett’s shoulder as he strained upwards against the friction, wanting more, _more_. Corvo, breathless, seemed transfixed first off by the sight of their dicks working together, against each other, but then looked up into Garrett’s eyes and watched him as he tensed and strained and _willed_ himself not to howl or spill himself on his own stomach, gripped what he could of the bedsheets between his good fingers, heaving in short, sharp gasps.

They pushed and rutted against each other like that for a few minutes, Corvo setting the pace for both of them, his cheekbones and hair and muscles illuminated _magnificently_ by the late night moon and what remained of the orange light of the brazier. He wanted - needed - to be closer. Much closer.

Garrett had pleasured himself before, of course, but after a short while, it had become less of a curious exploration of new feelings and more of an expression of boredom, of nature, of some modicum of comfort to help him sleep when the clocktower machinery did nothing to help him like it usually did, and was hardly a frequent matter. He had always suspected that having sex with another person would be of little difference to having sex with his own right hand. Clearly, he had been mistaken.

Corvo rocked himself slightly on top of him, his eyes screwed fucking shut, biting down hard on his bottom lip, and then appeared to force himself to slow down, to pull Garrett in one last time and whispered sweet words into his collarbones in between kisses, nipped his bottom lip, explored Garrett’s mouth with his own in sloppy, clumsy kisses. Pressure was building between Garrett’s legs, compelling him to fuck upwards into the tight hold Corvo had on him, driving against his shaft and in between his grip, the urge to break the kiss and bite down on Corvo’s bottom lip too strong. 

He missed the lip, grasped onto Corvo’s shoulder, and instead went for his neck, catching it between his lips and giving it a soft bite, sucking it, appreciating the faint taste of sea salt and peach soap before Corvo shuddered, yelped and broke contact, _hauled_ Garrett’s hips up over the top of his thighs and _drove_ forward, the pace maddeningly quick, the friction warming the two of them like neither the blanket nor the brazier could. Garrett’s feet slipped here and there on the mattress, struggling to find purchase, anything that would allow him to drive his hips upwards and into Corvo, but even then it would have been impossible to match the pace. 

There was a moment where Garrett was sure he had died and passed on to the next life, where Corvo stopped abruptly and he caught a glimpse of clenched teeth followed by a quick pursing of his lips as Corvo panted roughly through his nose, lost his pace and rutted wildly, uncoordinated, blind against Garrett’s crotch and then _yelled_ , clenching onto the two of them so hard that it almost hurt. Garrett grounded himself in the stifling heat above him, of the mass on top of him, and drew downward sharply, groaning hoarsely as he came onto his own stomach, felt Corvo do the same, let his roaming hands _squeeze_ his flanks in uncontrolled pleasure, matched him in whispering names and obscenities and soft pleas into his shoulder, waited for the static fuzz to recede from his brain leaving him wrung-out and exhausted and so, so drained.

It was minutes before Corvo managed to carefully peel himself from in between Garrett’s legs where he had collapsed.

He cleaned both of them off with a spare, clean rag Garrett had hidden in a drawer near the bed, stroking and kissing his face all the while, running his hands through his hair, appreciating the pale man underneath, who, only half asleep, had managed to come up with an exhausted smile and not much more.

“You alright?” Corvo asked, trailing his hand once again down Garrett’s flanks, attentive to the slow rise and fall of his chest, clearly nearly dreaming.

“Hmm,” he mumbled, reaching for but falling short of Corvo’s roaming hand, “That was nice.”

“Good.”

The sound of the City was clear once again. Corvo settled down behind Garrett with a contented smile, kissed the area behind the back of his exposed ear attentively, and then fell into a dead sleep, holding him close to his chest, arms tight around his body.

There, they slept peacefully for hours, intertwined.

\----------------------

Three knocks on the window sill.

Garrett roused suddenly from sleep. It was still night, or perhaps early morning. Not even the earliest, palest blues of morning light had begun to trickle through the window, nor the translucent eastern clockface high above the bed. Corvo slept soundly beside him, on his side, facing Garrett with one arm wrapped tightly, protectively around his arm, breathing peacefully. He was a quiet sleeper; in all of Garrett’s time working as a thief, he’d found that it was far more common for people to snore than not to do so, which was useful as provided some cover for his own noise, but it was nice to have a bed mate who slept quietly, and not only slept quietly, but looked attractive in doing so.

Bed mate, though? He wasn’t sure. Wasn’t sure if the burning in his chest was desire or something else. Love? Maybe so. Maybe not. But whether Corvo _loved_ him or not was another question - not his to ask.

He took a moment to watch Corvo as he slept, resisting the urge to caress his face and risk waking him, before rising carefully from the mattress and making his way back up the stairs. His feet padded softly on the floor, and still naked, the cold arched straight through him, mercilessly chilling him to his bones, so he stopped and collected a spare blanket from one of his cupboards. It was threadbare, thin and old but did the job, and he wrapped himself up in it, using it as a temporary stopgap until he could get back to bed. Back to Corvo.

He wasn’t sure if he was surprised to find Jenivere sat on the window sill, watching him with round, black eyes as he climbed the stairs, his knees still stiff from cold, wincing in pain as his bad fingers brushed too hard against the banister. He wasn’t sure how long she’d been here, but for all he knew, it could have been hours. No alarm there. She frequently stuck around for scritches and scraps of food, which he obliged dutifully, picking what scant flesh remained on the joint of meat Corvo had brought him the day previously, fed it to her. She snapped it up hungrily.

“Basso ever feed you?” he asked her in amusement, and she looked up at him, ruffled her feathers, “Off with you.”

She _chak-chakked_ for a moment, hopping around on the window sill before turning and soaring back out the window, and he watched her fly down from the clocktower, across the plaza, and then took a sharp turn just after she passed the Crippled Burrick, undoubtedly flying back to Basso. What he had felt the need to contact him about at this time of night was a mystery. The clock face read four in the morning - way too early for Basso to be up. It was true, he was a late sleeper as much as a late riser, but four am was pushing the envelope, even for him.

What was even stranger was that this message wasn’t scrawled on the back of a spent matchbox like it usually was. Neatly folded papers, sealed with a drop of hardened wax inside a yellowed wrap, some kind of crude packaging, with “Garrett” written on one side.

It didn’t cross his mind why it might have been sealed. He had no idea. Maybe it was his sleep-addled brain, maybe it was the fact that he was still compromised by his injuries, but he turned it over in his hand nonetheless, brought it over to his workshop area, and opened it with some difficulty by pressing it into the gnarled wood and prying it open with the same hand.

The first thing he picked up was a short note, written on the smallest and whitest piece of paper, in Basso’s handwriting, and it was this that set off screaming alarm bells.

__

_Garrett,  
Found this article on Corvo. Please have a read. Be careful. I am worried.  
\- B_

His mouth went dry.

What fuzzy haze of sleep that lingered suddenly lifted as the world rotated on its axes only slightly with the sudden shot of adrenaline, and he struck a match, lit a candle, leant on the workshop bench with one elbow, his eyes wide. There were two other papers in the package: one that was folded, big enough to be one of the Watch posters and printed on the same material - Garrett knew because he frequently collected ones bearing his own face and bounty and used them as quick fuel for his brazier, and the other a clipped-together section of several book pages, carefully scored and separated along one side. The text was only just large enough to read, especially in this candle-light. Had it been midday it would have been different.

He wasn’t in any sort of state to be reading the whole thing closely, so he skimmed the passage, shifting it closer to the candle as he did so, following it clumsily with one splinted finger, chewing on the inside of his cheek. Words clamoured on the page, and his heart raced.

_“For the first time in Dunwall's history, a monarch has been slain by her own bodyguard. At the time of this writing, with Dunwall in the grip of the worst plague ever recorded, our fair Empress Jessamine Kaldwin has just been murdered. The deed was done by her former Royal Protector-turned assassin, Corvo Attano -”_

Garrett’s breath hitched and he covered his mouth, nausea bubbling in his stomach, threatening to spill over. Clenching the side of his face, he thumbed the papers to the side and averted his eyes, unwilling to have them in his field of view any more, his legs shaking like a newborn deer underneath him. He pitched forward onto the desk, holding himself up with an elbow, willing himself to _calm down_. Surely there was an explanation. Surely this was wrong. Surely this was another Corvo Attano, and Basso had been mistaken.

The second thing that Basso had sent him was, without a shadow of a doubt, a poster. Garrett had known that the moment it had fallen out of the packaging Basso had created, and he was fairly sure, now he had read the carefully scored pages Basso had sent him, that he knew whose face would be on the front.

Not quite. But the image was painfully familiar.

Corvo’s mask stared blankly back at him from the thick parchment. The very mask he had taken off him on that first night, the very same one Corvo had donned when going to check on Basso and had returned coated in thick blood. Black, shining dully, jaw sewn on with what was clearly meant to be golden wire.

__

_Wanted on Suspicion of Conspiracy to Commit Murder_  
20,000 Gold Coins Reward  
Do Not Approach: Considered Public Menace  
Report to your Nearest Watch Officer  
Trust in Our Watch 

This-

This couldn’t be happening.

This couldn’t be real.

Prickles crept up his back, a chill seeping into his guts from the cold outside, the blanket suddenly doing nothing to protect him or make him feel warm any more. He dropped it to the floor where it bunched around his feet and he kicked it away. He wasn’t sure if he was going to pass out, or vomit, or simply curl up in a ball and _scream_ but _something_ was coming. 

Maybe.

Maybe this had all been a mistake.

The brazier flickered languidly as he made his way past it in search of Corvo’s coat, still matted with blood… how that had not sent red flags _flying_ at the time, Garrett wasn’t quite sure, but he found it folded neatly over the balustrade. Corvo was sleeping just below him. Where only hours ago he’d felt safe and loved -

No.

Garrett fumbled frantically through Corvo’s coat pockets, his hands shaking violently, not _caring_ that his broken fingers and sore, naked nail beds were screaming agonising in protest of their rough treatment, not _caring_ that his legs shook dangerously underneath him, not _caring_ that he was now so cold that his joints were seizing up and his muscles were stiff and dead, sending shooting pains up along the back of his knees and into his thighs. He _didn’t care._

If there had even been a shadow of a doubt before, it was obliterated by the note Garrett found accompanying the mask in Corvo’s pocket.

His own wanted poster, his face mercifully covered by dark scarf and cowl, his bounty, and a note at the bottom - spidery inked handwriting, poorly blotted, clumsy.

__

_Master Thief - The City - preferably dead_

A bounty note. An order of execution. And Corvo had it in his left pocket. Written to him, personally.

It was that which sent him lurching to a bucket in the corner of the room, vomiting acrid bile, and then crumpling to the ground beside it.

It was that which had the world spinning out of control.

It was that which tore silent sob followed by agonised sob from his frozen fucking chest.

He could spend all the time in the world rationalising with himself, trying to convince an already set mind that Corvo wasn’t there with poor intentions. It wasn’t going to happen.

Is this what he’d been here for all along? Had he sought him out in his clocktower and bided his time, waited for him to get comfortable, to _lower his fortifications, to allow himself to feel safe and protected and loved for **once in his fucking life,** only to strike him at his weakest?_

He stopped where he laid on the ground, curled in on himself, rocking gently, thinking. Corvo wasn’t awake. He would have called out for Garrett if he had. And now he knew that he was actively endangered by Corvo’s presence, so what was his next best bet?

If he had more than half an ounce of sense, he knew he would kill Corvo there and then. But he couldn’t.

He _couldn’t._

It was an impossibility.

He eyed the blackjack from his place on the cold floor, sat on the workbench along with his bow, quiver, and the bag of materials Corvo had brought him the day previously. 

The leather glowed a dark matte in the moonlight.

\----------------------

Corvo was still sleeping when Garrett crept back down the stairs with the blackjack held tightly in his good hand. Still, a halo of ruffled dark hair surrounded him, strands illuminated silver from the sky outside. A faint smile graced his lips as he slept, arm outstretched, hand open in the spot where Garrett had been sleeping next to him.

The brazier had gone out by now. It was just Garrett, Corvo, and the moon above.

Padding up to the bed, Garrett slipped around the other side, pulled on the shorts he had been wearing before. They were so cold against his skin, but it had to be some scant help against the elements that had him shivering, his lips turning blue, his toes burning from the contact with the cold floor. It wasn’t everything, but it was something.

He took another look at Corvo, shuffling up to him around the side of the bed, taking one last look at his face, peaceful in the night.

He wasn’t sure what the feeling was that was forcing its way out of his throat in stifled, silent cries. Maybe it was love. Maybe hatred. Maybe both.

There was no intention of killing anywhere in Garrett’s actions. It was an unfortunate part of life that he’d been forced to partake in only once before, but the guilt of the encounter still weighed heavily on his chest. It had left him a quivering mess for days, unable to eat or sleep, and he wasn’t keen to repeat the situation. What he planned on doing afterwards was a mystery, still being effectively incapacitated, but it was better than letting this murderer roam free with him, waiting until his guard was down, waiting for a moment to strike.

Garrett twirled the blackjack once between his fingers and _swung_ with all his might.

 _Something_ must have alerted Corvo to Garrett’s presence. He bolted upright in bed and held out a hand, swinging back at the offending arm with force, catching it at the wrist and squeezing hard enough for the blackjack to fall to the bed. His eyes followed the pale arm up to Garrett’s face, and his eyes widened in shock and fear, although he clearly hadn’t quite roused from sleep yet.

“Garrett-?”

Garrett panicked. Tears still streamed hot and fast down his cheeks and his heart hammered in his chest as he frantically struggled against Corvo’s grip, trying desperately to break his grip so he could flee and hide. 

“Garrett, what’s wrong?”

There was concern and panic in Corvo’s eyes, although to Garrett it looked nothing but dangerous. He twisted and pulled against the hand still holding him around the wrist, abject fear rising up from the pit of the stomach and into his throat until he was hyperventilating and crying almost hysterically.

“Garrett- No- _shhh_ , what’s up? What’s happened?”

Corvo reached out with his other hand to run it around Garrett’s back, who flinched, attempted to jump back, and in doing so pulled his splinted fingers through Corvo’s grip where they yanked in agonising strain and Garrett crumpled to the floor, cradling his hand to his chest, quivering in pain.

Corvo only just appeared to have fully come to and rolled off the side of the bed, jumped to his feet, and leant down over Garrett, who cowered, eyes wide, mouth dry, heart hammering, against the wall, doing everything he could do to put as much space between him and Corvo. If he had the blackjack, he would have been brandishing it, anything to use as some kind of protection, but he didn’t, and Corvo was at least a foot taller than him, much heavier, better fighter…

Corvo put his hands up so they were both within Garrett’s view, and with his back slightly bent, moved backwards _very slowly_. If this was some kind of ploy to keep Garrett calm, it wasn’t working. Still he pressed himself against the wall, underneath the painting that hung there, gripping his hand tightly underneath his armpit in some attempt to dispel the pain.

The world was spinning, static pulsing at the corner of his vision, the quiet of the clocktower roaring in his ears. Garrett rocked himself from side to side, watching Corvo intently, who pulled on his smallclothes again and then knelt down some feet in front of Garrett again, breathing heavily. It must have been a shock to be awoken in such a way, but what choice had Garrett had?

The dark brown eyes stared into his own. He didn’t dare make a move.

“Garrett, _please,_ ” Corvo said once the wails of pain died down, “Please, you _need_ to tell me what’s going on or I won’t be able to help you. Is it nightmares again?”

Garrett gritted his teeth. Aggressively avoided eye contact. He didn't know. _He didn’t know._

“I need to take a look at those fingers, Garrett, you might have damaged them again. Can you come closer? Can you-?” he rose from the bed a bit too suddenly and Garrett scrabbled against the floor again, hissing in pain, cramming himself back into the wall. Corvo stopped stock still and froze - and then sank back to his heels.

If Garrett were any better with words, he would have told Corvo to _get the fuck out_ by now. He’d have masterfully threatened him with whatever threats he was in a position to dole out and had him running from the clocktower, but he wasn’t able to. He was only capable of cowering in the corner. The offending papers lay by his side on the floor, by his ankle twisted slightly inward, pressed down by the elbow on his knee. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, ignoring how it stung and burned.

“Garrett, I-”

“You are a _murderer,”_ Garrett said, cutting him off, his voice hoarse and rough, cracking under the pressure, “You are- You-”

“I… _what?”_ A hint of panic in Corvo’s voice sealed the deal, “Where did you get that idea?” He followed Garrett’s pale blue-and-pink shins down to his slim foot, where the papers sat. Reached out for it.

The flinch stopped him in his tracks and he froze again. Garrett slowly pushed the papers over towards him with the ball of his foot, forcing them to slide across the floor until they were in a spot where, if Corvo reached for them, Garrett would be well out of arm’s reach.

Moments passed. Corvo picked up the papers and read them to himself, squinting, beginning to shiver in the cold night. Grew paler. Looked up into Garrett’s terrified, bloodshot eyes.

“You are a _murderer,”_ he repeated tearfully.

“Garrett, I can explain.”

“Explain then,” Garrett said - demanded - suddenly finding his voice, the anxiety and pain and terror replaced with anger, “Explain then why my bounty’s in your pocket. Explain why you’re wanted by the Watch for _conspiracy to commit murder._ Explain.”

Corvo faltered. Shuffled uncomfortably.

 _“Explain!”_

Could Corvo explain adequately? Was there any explanation to give? Was there an excuse or was none of it forgivable in any capacity?

“I realised it was a mistake as soon as I met you, I... I _planned_ on going back home to Dunwall and then I found you in-”

“So you accepted a bounty for my head,” Garrett said quietly, interrupting him halfway through the sentence but still failing to make eye contact, “So you agreed to _murder_ me for payment. The General, I assume, yes?”

There was a crushing silence. Corvo looked like he was about to burst into tears himself. “It was a mistake, I’m not taking jobs any more, I’m not-”

 _“Jobs?_ So what, you’re trained to kill people for money now? And here I was thinking you’d only murdered your Empress. How _many_ people have you killed?”

No wonder he had been so intent on hiding his past, his origins in Dunwall.

Corvo looked up suddenly and Garrett flinched again at the aggressive movement, wondering if he should just make a run for it and take his chances with the journey down the side of the clocktower. He was so exposed. So helpless.

“I didn’t murder her,” Corvo shot back, quiet fury now evident in his voice mingled with the ache in the back of his throat, “She was the love of my life. I never thought I could love again because someone _took her from me_ and she was my… she was my everything. And I thought maybe if those responsible were held to account then it would make it better but I… I’ve changed my mind. I thought I’d never love again but then I found you and I-”

“Save it,” Garrett warned him, steely in his tone.

“Garrett-”

“Get out.”

Corvo’s expression of horror was painful to look at, so Garrett looked away again, just above his head at the wall behind him.

_“I said get out. And don’t come back.”_

Corvo rocked on his hind quarters for a moment before he nodded, lifted his hands to where Garrett could very clearly see them, and then slowly moved off towards the stairs, looking around for any spare pieces of clothing that he had missed, getting dressed in what he could gather together, pulling on the great, heavy, bloodstained coat. Garrett followed him up the stairs and slunk around to his workbench protectively, pulling a sawtooth arrow from his quiver and brandishing it. 

He _couldn’t_ kill this man.

He _loved_ him. Loved him more than he had loved anybody else, despite their short time together.

But _gods if it wasn’t agony._

What he would do to be in his arms again.

And after Corvo was gone from the clocktower, after he had pleaded with Garrett to reconsider and had Garrett violently rebuff him, after Garrett had spent _far too long_ vomiting into his bucket and finally cleaned it out, after he _hurled_ the papers into his brazier to burn to ash; only then did he return to the bed which by now had gone cold, and _screamed_ into his pillow, the scent of sea salt and peach soap still agonisingly fresh on the covers.

\----------------------

When he woke later that morning in a blind panic, reeling and screaming from dizzying nightmares, he reached out and found Corvo was not there.

When he fell asleep and dreamt of warm brown eyes and safe arms, he woke to a cold bed and a sore throat and tight tear tracks on his cheeks.

When on the brink of sleep which he so dutifully avoided now, he found himself curling into the spare pillow on the other side of the bed.


	23. Epilogue - Become Shadow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Corvo makes his escape. Basso gives Garrett some advice and then a new job.

The sea air was cold as Corvo watched the City disappear off into the early morning fog. He deliberately avoided the sight of Garrett’s clocktower towering high into the air. High, but not high enough to escape the smog and the filth lurking low on the ground. It would soon fade away into a cloud of black dirt, not much more than a stain on his memory begging to be washed out.

He was done. Finished. Finished with strange cities and contracts and Whalers and authorities and thieves and…

All of it.

All he wanted was to go back to Emily. Be by her side. Guide her and help her become the best empress she could be. Hope that she would live up to Jessamine’s name in the Empire and drive it toward a brighter future. 

The sea air was cold and stank of fish and seaweed, although the smell wasn’t as bad as the seas near Dunwall which were ripe with the stink of whale and hagfish entrails. Here just smelled of dirt and grubby factories, engine oil, timber gone bad. Like Dunwall, but not quite as advanced. The seaspray splashed around the bow of the boat. It got colder.

The City faded out into a dark haze on the horizon, and was then swallowed by the fog of the sea completely, leaving nothing but a white, empty space and the crashing of the sea around it.

Corvo sighed and stood up from the bench he had been sat down on, hitching his coat in around his sides and shivering. He had been lucky to catch a ship back to Dunwall. Ships travelled all over the Empire, it was true, and there were boats from the City to Dunwall pretty much daily, although they went at seemingly odd times, usually very early in the morning. He had made his way straight for the docks after recovering emotionally from the… incident with Garrett. Emotional recovery wasn’t really the word for it. His chest still ached like his heart had been ripped out and his throat burned and his lungs were still tight, but no longer was the apparent need to _throw something_ painfully present.

He just felt drained and empty.

The boat itself was probably intended more to be a cargo ship but apparently it had also been deemed suitable to carry passengers below deck. Quarters were small and other living space even smaller, but it was only three days, Corvo knew he could make do, spend most of his time catching up on lost sleep and thinking about getting back to Dunwall, other times sat on the deck watching the waves go by. With any luck, it might even have been calming, therapeutic.

Just him and the waves and the Captain.

Or so he thought.

He wasn’t sure whether he’d twisted and turned _just_ the wrong way that night, but an unpleasant crick in his neck woke him up. His joints had been beginning to ache, so instead of going back to sleep, he pulled on his coat and boots, and still in his nightclothes climbed up to the top deck, leant on the edge of the boat, and took a draught from the hip flask the Captain had been so kind to let him refill. Tipping it back once, twice, and then one final time, he stared out into the pale grey-blue ocean surface, felt the familiar burn down his throat and the fire in his belly before screwing the cap back on and sliding it back into the pouch by his side, running his tongue along the roof of his mouth and then resting his forehead in his palm.

He knew he should have been shivering, but he wasn’t, and a sudden chill wind took him by surprise. His shoulders sagged.

“Hello dear Corvo,” said the Outsider from behind him, “How curious to find you here, on a boat, sailing back to Dunwall so soon.”

Corvo let an uncomfortable moment of silence pass before turning to look at the Outsider with dead eyes, silent as the night, watching him carefully.

“And what of your… contract?”

“Are you here to _gloat?”_ Corvo said, tilting his head and narrowing his eyes, voice lowered and full to the brim of venom, “Are you here to tell me how you were right all along and I should never have taken the contract?”

There was a moment of silence as the Outsider crossed his arms over his chest, still floating lifelessly, slightly above the deck. “You _fascinate_ me, Corvo.”

“Do I?” Corvo said, bitter and defeated, turning back towards the sea, uncapping his hip flask again, “You’ve told me plenty of times before. But I’d forgotten all those, so I needed you to tell me again. I really did.”

The air twisted around him as the Outsider disappeared and reappeared beside him in a cloud of ash, leaning over the edge of the boat, mirroring Corvo’s position, chin settled in the palm of one hand, “Corvo my dear, this could have all ended so well, you could have gained a new ally, a new friend - clearly needed judging by the state of the Empire. Maybe even, dare I say it, you could have found love again, only to have it ripped away from you in a matter of minutes.”

He gripped the lip of the boat edge until he could feel the white blooming on the tops of his knuckles and shuddered, turned away, tried with all he had to block the Outsider’s voice from his ears. Regardless, he appeared in front of Corvo once again, leaving him with nowhere to turn.

“You did a lot for this man, Corvo. Showed him love and compassion when nobody else had, brought him food and gifts and helped him through some of the worst days of his life - so far - but trust is easy to destroy, betrayal is hard to forgive, and paranoia and rage are rampant in its wake. He’s going to find it very hard to piece himself back together, and even then, will he ever be the same again? Alas, your fates are not intertwined at this moment, but one day, they will be.”

Corvo’s head snapped up and his eyes widened at the Outsider’s comment, “What-”

“You’ll see each other again, my dear friend, but whether it’s on good terms is your choice. Until then though, consider this: What would you have done differently? Would you have accepted the contract at all, or would you have burnt it while you still had the chance?”

“You--”

The Outsider raised an eyebrow at Corvo before dissolving once again into a burst of Void ash, leaving Corvo rocking in time with the boat, the wind howling around him, suddenly freezing.

He found himself standing by himself on the deck, staring out into the darkness for a very long time.

And by the time the morning broke over the horizon, and the snow started to fall around the boat, and the temperature outside warmed up just enough for the Captain to come out on deck; by then, all the whiskey was gone.

\----------------------

It was a long time before Garrett was able to do much more than lie in bed and stare at the ceiling, resorting to scrubbing himself raw to remove the feeling of Corvo from his skin, and even longer still before he was fit enough able to leave the clocktower.

Maybe it wasn’t even so much of a physical problem than a psychological one: if someone in the City, presumably the General, was at a stage where he felt that hiring an assassin on him was the only way to proceed, then should he be worried about what was next, what was to come? For all he knew, someone bigger and nastier and more brutal or (gods forbid) better at worming his way in past Garrett’s defences would come along, and _then_ he would _really_ have something to worry about. If only one good thing had come out of this situation, then it had been a lesson in not allowing himself to trust people blindly. Clearly, there were two, and only two, people in the world that Garrett could trust: Basso and himself.

And even then, Basso was a long shot.

It was maybe a day or so before Basso sent Jenivere to him again in concern, the chicken scratch scrawl on the matchbox recognisable as ever, asking Garrett where he had gone, to write a message back as soon as possible, anything. Garrett had contemplated throwing that into the brazier too, but thought better of it, instead opting to send a message in return, a fumbled _I’m fine_ with what fingers remained at his disposal on the back of Basso’s message, and sent it back with her.

And it was true.

He _was_ fine.

_He was fine._

He had not _actually_ come to any harm during Corvo’s stay, so all was well and good - if anything, it had been a net gain; Corvo _had_ indeed fed him and taken care of his injuries while he had been around, it was true. He didn’t want to think about it.

The few books on medicine he owned told him it would be six weeks before he would even be able to think about exercising it, and even then it was painful to hold weights much heavier than his bow. Certainly he would be unable to draw it. The food began to dwindle very quickly so he rationed it and took to overfilling the brazier with what wood parts he could find in the clocktower and huddling under his sheets to preserve energy and warmth. It wasn’t ideal, but he was surviving.

Day after day, he exercised his bad arm and all the fingers that had been broken religiously. Some healed quicker than others, some continued to ache long after the remaining ones had returned to normal, and eventually he began to work them compulsively in an attempt to banish the ever-present soreness, flexing and extending them, always in pursuit of comfort but never quite obtaining it. The nails grew back in but they looked dark and diseased and malformed, and Garrett took to painting over them in black along with the other nails to hide it - mostly from himself.

He became shadow.

As a result of his need to leave the clocktower once again and distract himself from whatever the fuck was going on inside his head, he began to train once again, tied a coil of rope to the balcony on the floor above his sleeping quarters and began by holding onto it as tightly as was reasonable - tighter on the days when he was feeling particularly disturbed - and slowly slowly began to re-learn how to bear his weight safely.

When he had finally managed to compose something that resembled a leather harness, he found that the old measurements for the eyelets not longer fit him snug enough to function to any reasonable degree as a harness, so he punched new holes in and fitted them with the metal rings, mentally checked out all the while in humiliation, tied it tightly around himself and then laced it at the sides for good measure.

It wasn’t fixed, but it was definitely a start, and with the rest of the leathers quickly constructed, boots measured and moulded, and canvas trousers sewn together, he found himself in a state where it would be entirely possible for him to get back down the clocktower and back to see Basso. He left himself a couple more weeks to get used to shinning his way up and down the rope, food slowly running out as his appetite waxed and waned and he rationed it further and further until there was almost nothing left.

The jar of boiled sweets remained stashed at the bottom of one of his loot chests, wrapped in aged newsprint and the scruffy, threadbare blanket Garrett used to keep underneath his bed, encasing it protectively like a relic or an artifact. On the odd occasion he took it out and looked at it carefully, studying the pretty glass jar and the bright contents, but then put it away after some time, never opening it. It had been a gift, and it still meant a lot to him.

Stepping outside for the first time was almost purifying. It was spring time now, the days getting longer, the air warmer and fresher, despite the filth of the City, it was now not so late in the year that it became hot and sticky and smelly, but the air was perfumed with the scent of fresh trees and plants from Auldale, pale blossoms swept into the streets by westerly winds where they were trampled down into the cracks in the cobbles by horses and watchmen alike.

Garrett’s heart skipped a beat as his hands spasmed and he nearly lost his grip on the supportive rope, but drove himself forward nonetheless; if he were to stay in his clocktower alone for any longer, he would run out of food and quickly starve to death. It was dark now, late in the evening, but Basso would be, without question, up anyway doing whatever it was that he did at this time of night. Probably sorting out another one of his black hands or contacting clients, organising or doling out payment.

Basso was, in fact, asleep at his desk when Garrett knocked at the window, sending him reeling backwards where the chair tipped onto its back legs and balanced precariously for a moment before falling back forwards. Basso jumped up and hurried to the front door, where Garrett was now waiting with a weak smirk and his arms crossed over his chest.

Temporarily stunned by shock, Basso took a step back, his eyes wide. “Garrett-?”

“Can I come in?”

There was another moment of silence as Basso froze and then softened, standing aside and gesturing for him to come in, his voice quiet and subdued, “Sure, sure. Sit down.”

It was oddly formal for someone like Basso, but it might have just been the shock of seeing Garrett after so long that had him temporarily stunned. He offered Garrett tea, and at his refusal, simply sat down next to him and sighed. “Garrett, I thought you’d died. I thought Corvo had murdered you. I found that poster and the book about him and the Empress and I didn’t… I couldn’t work out what to do.”

Garrett fiddled with the fingers outstretched in his lap and took a moment to formulate his answer, “He’s gone. You were right Basso, he was bad news.”

Basso sagged and pressed two fingers into the sides of the bridge of his nose, “Gods Garrett, I’m so sorry, I should have known better than to send you off home with him on that night, I just knew you’d be in danger here and it didn’t feel right relying on chance to keep you safe. Maybe I made the wrong decision.”

“It’s fine,” Garrett said, staring straight ahead into nothingness, blind to the wall on the other end of the room, his mind somewhere else, “He didn’t hurt me - brought me food, stitched me up - but I found a note in his pocket. A contract,” he paused as Basso gasped and clamped a hand over his mouth, his eyes wide in horror, “From the General, Basso, he was an assassin. He was paid off to...”

Basso looked at Garrett as his voice trailed off into nothingness, his eyes wide, paused for a minute as he stumbled over his own words. “I can’t fuckin’ believe-” He interrupted himself, choking on and tripping over the disturbing thoughts now clamouring at the edges of his mind, _“Fuckin’ bastard. I can’t believe it._ Can’t believe myself… But you said there was no harm done in the end?”

Garrett shook his head, “No, not really, he never actually injured me, anyway. That’s what’s been confusing me though - he was contracted to assassinate me, but he never once acted like it, even when he could have. He was kind and-”

“And?” Basso said sharply when Garrett’s voice faltered again, “And _what?”_

There was a _look_ in Garrett’s eyes. One that Basso had never seen before, not on Garrett anyway. Maybe once or twice when people came to the Burrick or the Siren’s Rest with their husbands or wives or lovers, but it was rare. And Basso didn’t like it. Not on Garrett and _especially_ when he was clearly thinking about a known assassin.

 _”Don’t tell me you were…_ Garrett? He’s a murderer. You know that.”

Garrett let his eyes wander from some point beyond the confines of the room to the floor and then slid them along the smooth flagstones on the floor, paying very close attention to the cool air around him. Felt the familiar burn of embarrassment on the bridge of his nose and he dipped his head. There was no way he was going to admit what had actually happened to Basso, not a chance, but Basso turned toward him regardless and leaned forward on his knees, his gaze burning hard and prickly into his back.

“Nothing.”

Eventually, Basso relented. Clearly Garrett wasn’t going to cede any time soon, so he just sat back in his chair, the silence of the room burning into their ears. The fresh smell of blossoms from Auldale didn’t carry itself into the cellar of the Crippled Burrick as easily as it did anywhere else - even Garrett’s clocktower smelled sweeter - but it was still there, and he concentrated on how it made the inside of his throat burn ever so slightly; any distraction from Basso’s disapproving stare. Minutes passed. The sounds of Watchmen’s boots drifted in from the plaza. The candles flickered away on Basso’s desk, the shadows dancing to and fro along the floor.

“That some new style?” Basso said in an attempt to lighten the mood, gesturing at Garrett’s painted fingernails and avoiding all mention of Corvo, “All my blackhands gonna start wearing that now? They all look up to you, Garrett.”

It was a well-intentioned gesture, but Garrett _stiffened visibly_ and curled his fingers into his palm, drawing the hand closer into his lap protectively, shielding them from Basso’s view with the top of his hand and banishing the aching ball deep in his throat by gritting his teeth, saying nothing. Basso quickly appeared to realise his mistake and stood up brisky, turned and went to make himself some tea, leaving Garrett sitting by himself staring dead ahead, watching Jenivere as she preened and then tucked her head back into her feathers.

Returning after a couple of minutes and avoiding eye contact, Basso sat back down next to Garrett and hustled one of the cups into his hands insistently. “Even if ya don’t drink it Garrett, it’ll be good for you to have something warm to hold.”

He nodded in acceptance. Although steaming, the cup was _just about_ cool enough to hold without having to leave it on a nearby surface, so Garrett just rolled it between his hands, staring into the dark liquid, watching the ripples that emerged from the centre and lapped at the sides as his hands trembled ever so slightly, hoping that the very weak smell would do something, _anything_ to banish the gaping hole in his chest. If anything, it was doing some minor good for the joints in his fingers that still ached, and although Basso’s tea wasn’t nearly as all-encompassing as Corvo’s warm hands, it still helped. He resisted the urge to set the tea down on the chair and dip his fingers in it.

It took an immense amount of effort for Garrett to finally drag his mind out of the dark pit in which it had nestled and turned to Basso, very slowly. “Do you have any jobs?”

“Garrett, I… Are you sure that you’re ready? You look terrible. I don’t want you hurting yourself.”

Garrett shrugged at the suggestion, staring at the floor. Said nothing. Couldn’t bring himself to tell Basso everything was fine, but also hoping he’d just give him some work to distract himself, to finally run free in the night, lose himself in stealing other people’s shit, to do what he’d always been best at and to find himself again.

“... Garrett, I’m not giving you a job until-”

“I’m fine, Basso, give me an assignment and I’ll be back to you with it tomorrow evening.”

Basso wasn’t entirely convinced at Garrett’s insistence, but relented anyway, feeling it was probably safer to have Garrett checking in with him frequently and out being active, feeding himself enough to work and keeping as up to date on personal hygiene as he had to be as a thief. It wasn’t ideal, but it was something, and it was certainly better than leaving him alone to _rot_ where he couldn’t reliably reach him. He sighed.

“A’ight. Fine. But if you don’t come back to me tomorrow I’ll climb up that fuckin’ clocktower and find you myself. And eat something fresh for fuck’s sake, you look like you’re about to keel over dead.”

Garrett allowed himself a snort and then stood up, holding onto the back of the chair for support, and gave Basso the cup of tea which had now gone cold. “Tomorrow evening. Your place. You’d better be there or I’m finding another fence.”

“Yeah, get the fuck out of here you delinquent,” Basso said, thankful for the lightened mood, watching Garrett’s back as he retreated for the door and stepped outside, “And get some fucking sleep too. You look like a ghost.”

Garrett stopped at the threshold of the door for a moment and froze, looking briefly like he was about to turn around, then thought better of it and disappeared into the night.

\----------------------

Months passed. Seasons came and went. Moons waxed and waned and the City went from cool and sweet-scented to muggy and sticky and hot, and then descended back to the cold, dark depths of winter.

Garrett became stronger. His wounds healed over into long pale scars, his joints slowly regained mobility and range and on some days, they didn’t even ache. His nails never quite recovered, so the black nail paint became a mainstay in his home, which he used regularly and faithfully, unwilling to spectate the results of those days under the chapel. The more he worked, the more jobs he took on for Basso, the fitter he became, gaining back weight, rebuilding lost muscle, and sleeping with increased regularity as he moved back into working through the night. He maintained the clocktower and fletched arrows in the meantime, completed and then updates his leathers, harness and armour, ensured he saw Basso on occasion, picked up a couple of regular client directly, worked harder. Harder.

The posters containing Garrett’s mugshot still littered the walls of the City, leaving Garrett concerned about the possibility of another hired hitman, and had him up during the day at times, double checking the defenses and alarm systems in his clocktower in fear that he would be caught unaware, unable to sleep even with the ticking of the clock, but months and then years passed, and nobody came, leaving him with nothing but a pounding heart, breath heaving through over-filled lungs, and a choking, gnawing terror that climbed up from his stomach and suffocated him at the sound of unexpected noises in his home. The defences mercifully went unused.

And then, two and a half years after, the night of the Summer Dance Festival, Basso sent a matchbox note with Jenivere to Garrett’s window, requesting a meeting. 

“It’s a small job,” Basso said when had Garrett arrived and they had done the customary back-and-forth in greeting, “But it might be dangerous. Be ready for anything, Garrett, I’ve assigned Erin to work with you and she’ll meet you near the target.”

Garrett tipped his head to the side and motioned for him to continue. The strained tone wasn’t lost on him, and neither was Basso’s apparent decision to have him working with Erin, who he’d decisively cut contact with many years ago over deep-seated disagreements in methods of thievery. The prospect annoyed him greatly, but it wasn’t his place to argue, and they both knew Garrett was free to refuse the job if he wanted.

Not that he was ever one to turn down a challenge, which this inevitably would be.

“Northcrest Manor. It’s called the _Primal Stone_. Heard stories about it but,” he blew through his lips, “Don’t believe a fuckin’ word of it. Client’s paying good coin, and I promised to deliver.”

Garrett paused and waited patiently as Basso retrieved a marked map from one of the bookshelves, running his gloved hands along the dusty old spines before finding what he needed and pulling it out, handing it to Garrett and waited for the customary stiff response.

“This it?”

“Yes,” Basso said in blunt confirmation, “That should be everything you need. Should tell you where you need to go, if you haven’t already robbed the place blind.” A pause as Garrett made for the door, “Oh, and Garrett?”

Garrett stopped in his tracks and turned, unsmiling to Basso, face obscured by shadow and mask propped over his chin, ready to be pulled up. Nodded and waited for him to continue.

“Be careful. No job is worth your life.”

“What’s life without a little risk?” Garrett asked, pulled up the scarf to cover his mouth and nose, and left Basso stood alone by the desk.

It was going to be a long night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh boy. That was a _lot_ longer than I originally planned. But I think it turned out alright, and I hope you guys do as well :)
> 
> So. In terms of news: I have a sequel planned (as you probably guessed or haven't already heard me talking about it) called **House of Pandora**. It will be set after both the Thi4f game and Dishonored 2, and I'll be putting it in a series with this work, so if you're interested then please give the series a follow. It should hopefully start updating in a couple of months, depending on how long it takes me to build up a set of buffer chapters, but I'm so excited about the concept I suspect it won't be long. I can't wait to get started on it.
> 
> Before that, though, I should be putting out some supportive oneshots that explains what happens in-between the two stories, on both Garrett and Corvo's side. Maybe three at most. If you're confused about anything that happened during Let Me In then please tell me, and I'll do my best to either explain or amend the inconsistency.
> 
> So thanks to those of you who kudos-ed and subscribed and bookmarked and especially commented, I could not have done it without you, seriously. I wish you guys all the very best because you deserve nothing less.
> 
> If you want to say [hi to me on Tumblr](http://ledaeus.tumblr.com/) then please do so! Updates about the sequel will inevitably be more frequent there. Or if you like the element of surprise, then don't, I won't judge you :)
> 
> For now, I'll stop rambling. Keep being cool, and see you in House of Pandora.


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